Title: HDRP Healthcare Disaster Recovery Planning
1HDRPHealthcare Disaster Recovery Planning
An overview of readiness for Disaster
Recovery/Business and Operations Continuity
Planning in a healthcare environment.
2Introduction
- It is vital for healthcare providers to take the
development and maintenance of a disaster
recovery plan seriously. It is not a process that
can be left until someone finds enough time to
deal with it. A serious incident can occur at any
time. - Disaster Recovery (DR) has always been important
to healthcare, but the events of recent years
have increased the awareness and highlighted the
importance of this often overlooked business
function. The loss of mission critical systems
can result in the disability of business
continuity and patient care. The ability to
recover systems quickly, accurately and
completely is critical to the ongoing business,
operations and clinical up time success during a
crisis.
3Industry Terms
- DRP Disaster Recovery Plan
- BCP Business Contingency or Continuity Plan
- RPO Recovery Plan Objective
- RTO Recovery Time Objective
- BOIA Business and Operational Impact Assessment
- RA Risk Assessment
- Hot Site A commercial DR service that allows
the continuance of computer and network
operations by providing system and
infrastructure. - Cold Site Similar to a hot site but the client
provides the hardware. - RCO Remote Computing Option, where the
application and system requirements are provided
on a remote network and brought on-line only in
case of an emergency and access to the remote
network and application is done through secure
standard WAN technologies. - Outsourcing Vendors that will provide the
entire planning, recovery options and plan
maintenance. - DR Planning Tools Software and templates that
provide a guide for planning and maintenance.
4Topics of Discussion
- Awareness and Compelling Reasons
- HIPAA Regulations
- Business Impact Analysis (BIA)
- Risk Assessment
- What is Healthcare Disaster Recovery Planning
(HDRP) - First Steps
- Awareness
- Assessments
- Process Ranking
- Creating the DR Plan Infrastructure
5Healthcare Disaster Recovery Planning
What is it.
- Healthcare Disaster Recovery and Contingency
Planning is the creation of coordinated efforts
for restoring system (s), data, IT and clinical
operations that will support mission critical
applications and processes such as - Patient Care
- Patient Management
- Medical Records (EMR, HER)
- Financials
- Departmental such as
- Lab
- Radiology
- Imaging
- Outpatient services
-
- It is the infrastructure that will ensure the
continuity of key automated processes that are
critical to the continuance of business and
patient care operations.
6Awareness Compelling Reasons
- Compliance Regulations
- Emergency Preparedness
- Natural Disaster (s)
- Human Caused Disasters
- Technological Disasters
- Growing Dependency on automation for business and
patient care - Up to date with technology
- Cyberspace Threats
- Cost of downtime
7DRP vs. BCP - What is the difference
- BCP is the general term that disaster recovery
planning is evolving to. - A DRP was or is considered reactive and usually
focuses on recovering a computing environment.
Although measures may be taken to harden the
computing infrastructure to prevent a disaster,
the plans main objective (RPO) is to recover
from damage to the computing infrastructure. - In healthcare, the needs to continue with
business and patient care during an event is
critical, therefore DR planners started to
strategize on how to include business and patient
care continuity or contingency planning as part
of the DRP. BCP is not only proactive, it is
intended to keep the organization operational
during an event, not just recovering the
computers after the fact.
8Awareness - Compliance - HIPAA
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
ACT (HIPAA)
"Each entity needs to determine its own risk in
the event of an emergency that would result in a
loss of operations. A contingency plan may
involve highly complex processes in one
processing site, or simple manual processes in
another. The contents of any given contingency
plan will depend upon the nature and
configuration of the entity devising it." --
(From the Department of Health and Human
Services, 45 CFR Parts 160, 162, and 164, Health
Insurance Reform Security Standards Final Rule)
9Regulation Compliance - HIPAA
- Disaster recovery (DR) planning often fails to
take into consideration how various regulations
and compliance issues will impact the firm after
a disaster strikes. - Though it doesn't impact all businesses, those
regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) will quickly
find that DR planning for this regulation is an
intricate web of potential pitfalls. - One thing that is clear from HIPAA's security
rule is that producing a DR plan is a HIPAA
requirement however, the act is written to be
"technologically neutral," which leaves room for
each covered entity to choose the technology best
suited to its needs.
10Compliance Core Principles
Mandates
HIPAA
11Awareness - Emergency Preparedness
The goal of emergency preparedness is to give
individuals and organizations the preparation and
knowledge to effectively respond to an emergency.
- Bioterrorism
- Anthrax
- Plague
- Tularemia
- Chemical Emergencies
- Nerve Agents
- Chlorine
- Ricin
- Sarin
- Radiation Emergency
- Dirty Bombs
- Nuclear
- Mass Casualties
- Explosions
- Burns
- Trauma
- Natural Disasters
- Tornados
- Hurricanes
- Wildfires
- Earthquakes
- Outbreaks Incidents
- Avian Flu
- Seasonal Flu
- Mumps
12Awareness - Natural Disasters
- Although technological advances has given the
ability to predict the occurrence of certain
events, some events are difficult to predict or
can not be predicted at all. Recent events have
demonstrated the magnitude and impact of such
events. - Some of these natural disasters are
- Earthquakes or Seismic events
- Hurricanes
- Typhoons
- Wildfires
- Tornados
- Tsunamis
- Others
13Awareness Human Caused Disasters
- Human caused disasters can be divided in two
separate categories, Intentional, Accidental. - Intentional Disasters
- Terrorism
- Bioterrorism
- Intentional explosions
- Arson
- Civil Disorder
- Collateral Damage
- Cyber threats
- Accidental Disasters
- Non intentional Contamination
- Accidents involving
- Non intentional explosions
- Accidental collateral damage
- Accidental fires
- Epidemic
14Awareness Technological Disasters
- Technological disasters have the most number of
occurrences. They are related to technology in
the practice automation. But sometimes they can
be unrelated involving vendors, service providers
and non-related technologies. - Some of these disaster include
- System (s) failure or crashes
- Application and or software failure
- Utility Outages
- Power, water and gas
- Technology service providers
- Cable and telephone company
- Satellite services
- Wireless
- Outages
- Neighboring technology disasters that may affect
you. -
15Awareness Dependency on Automation and
Technology Update
- As computing technology advances, the dependency
on healthcare automation grows. In most cases
this technology is crucial to the continuance of
patient care and administration processes. - Vendors and service providers are constantly
offering improvements and or better technology
related to hardware and software that give
physicians and administrators better automated
tools or processes. The dependency in automation
is accentuated more in the clinical and financial
aspects of a practice. - Some of these dependencies are in
- Hardware
- Clinical, administrative and financial
applications - Network LAN/WAN/Wireless
- Specialty integrated medical equipment
16Actual hospital IS environment - MHMC
17Awareness Financial Impact
High Availability Cannot Be Acquired
Out-Of-The-Box It Is Built Into the
Architecture and Preserved by Effective Processes
- Productivity Loss
- Number of Fully Burdened Employee impacted
- Lost Revenue
- Direct Loss
- Compensatory Payments
- Lost Future Revenues
- Investment Loss
- Delayed Collections
- Billing Losses
- Missed Discounts
- Extra Expense
- Cost to Recover
- Overtime Expense
- Increased Fraud Risk
- Increased Error Rate
- Travel Expenses
- Temporary Employees
- Damaged Reputation
- Patient, Suppliers, Partners, Banks, Financial
Markets - Credit Ratings
- Penalties
- Contractual
- Regulatory
- Legal
18Recovery metrics for evaluating DRP/BCP strategies
Clinical and Business Operations
Strategic Planning and Control, Architecture
Definition for Clinical and Business Processes
Applications
HIS Legacy Applications, Data Structures, Naming
Conventions, Quality Standards Application
Integrations
DRP/BCP Management Practices
Change, Problem, Configuration
Support Systems
Operations Automation, Logical Security, HIS,
Departmental Middleware, Database
System (S) Software
Operating Systems
System (s) Hardware
Capacity Planning, Servers, User Interface
Storage Devices, Routers, Switches
Enterprise Facilities
Facilities Management, Environmental, Clinical,
Administration, Utilities, Safety and
Preparedness
19Business and Operation Impact Assessment
What is a Business and Operation Impact Assessment
- A Business and Operation Impact Analysis (BOIA)
is the foundation for business and patient care
continuity planning. A detailed BOIA should
identify the business, financial and clinical
operational impacts that may result from a
disruption of operations. Negative impacts may
results in - Cost of downtime
- Loss of Revenue
- Inability to continue with patient care
- Loss of automated processes
20Risk Assessment
- What is a Risk Assessment
- A risk assessment is the analysis of possible
disasters, including natural, technical, social
and human threats that can result in short or
long term downtime. Each functional area of the
organization should be analyzed to determine the
potential negative consequences and impact
associated with various disaster scenarios.
During the risk assessment process consideration
should be given to evaluate the safety of
critical documents and vital records related to
the continuance of patient care and business
operations.
- Although the exact nature of potential disasters
or their resulting consequences are difficult to
determine or predict, it is beneficial to perform
a comprehensive risk assessment of all threats
that can realistically occur. Regardless of the
type of threat, the goals of business and
clinical operations continuity and disaster
recovery planning are to ensure the safety of
patients, employees and systems recovery during
and following a disaster
21Risk Assessment
- Risk Assessment cont.
- Items to consider in determining the probability
of a specific disaster should include, but not be
limited to - Geographic location
- Topography of the area
- Proximity to power sources, water bodies, and
airports - Degree of accessibility to the organization
- History of local utility companies in providing
uninterrupted services - History of the areas susceptibility to natural
threats - Proximity to major highways which transport
hazardous waste and combustible products - Proximity to nuclear power plants
- Other factors
22Awareness Financial Impacts
- Awareness
- It is good practice to understand and demonstrate
a clear commitment to establishing and
maintaining effective disaster recovery and
contingency planning processes. - All management and clinical staff should be
informed that a disaster recovery plan is
required in order to ensure that the essential
business and clinical functions are able to
continue in the event of serious adverse
circumstances.
23The First Steps
- Planning
- A good start is to create a list of all necessary
documents and information. Where this may include
documents containing sensitive patient and
business information. - Care must be taken to ensure that confidentiality
is not compromised and regulatory requirements
are met. - A list of documents and information which could
be required as part of the planning. - Create an effective backup strategy that will
ensure the safety of critical patient and
financial information
24The First Steps
- Assessing Key Business and Clinical Areas
- The disaster recovery plan should include a
descriptive list of the organization's major
business and clinical areas. This list should
rank the areas in order of importance to the
overall organization. - Each item should include a brief description of
the business and clinical processes and main
dependencies on systems, communications,
personnel, information systems and data.
25Approaches to HDRP
- Infrastructure
- Office space, phones, intranets, LAN/WAN access,
internet/intranet, security etc. - Systems Restore
- Includes both Hardware and Operating System
- Critical Applications
- Includes programs that are critical to the
continuity of the business and patient care. - Data
- Live records containing business and clinical
transactions as well as specific procedures and
business rules. - Operations Continuity
- Daily operations and tasks to secure the
continuance business and patient care processes.
26Getting Started
- Assess
- Assessments are critical to the planning of
healthcare disaster recovery. They can provide
detail information that can be crucial when
making a decision. Accurate Disaster Recovery
Planning can be accomplished by having
information before hand regarding risk factors
and the impact of operations interruption. - Determine what the Recovery Plan and Time
Recovery Objectives. - Determine what the objectives are for planning
and recovery time. - Determine the requirements for planning.
- These are the planning requirements that need to
be met in order to accomplish your recovery plan
and time objectives (RPO RTO). -
27The Disaster Recovery Plan
- The Workflow
- It is crucial to develop an effective workflow.
The workflow can determine how your DR plan will
be executed. - It also provides a guide and road map to the
decision making process. - The response and recovery time frame will impact
on overhead costs and loss of revenue.
Restore To Normal Operations
Crisis Anticipation/ Declaration
Restore From Backup
Emergency Response
Mobilize Resources
Restore Application
Resume Operations
Remote Location
Remote Location
Remote Location
Remote Location
Overhead Costs and Loss of Revenue
28Getting Started
- Disaster Recovery Options
- Outsourcing Planning knowledge, development
maintenance Engagement on hourly or fixed rates
- DR Planning Tools DRP development
maintenance. One time charge plus support pending
on delivery options, web-based or standalone. - Cold Site - Recovery site based on options and
contractual agreement. Monthly or per occurrence
charge. - Hot Site For complete redundancy and recovery
site based on options and contractual agreement.
Monthly charge. (Expensive) - RCO Based on options and contractual agreement.
Monthly or per occurrence charge. (Least
Expensive) - Self Sufficient Where the organization provides
its own recovery option (s).
29Getting Started
- Disaster Recovery Plan Testing
- It ensures that the Plan works
- It ensures that team members are up to date with
changes - It assess changes needed to adapt to new
technology and processes - Test the plan simulating real possible scenarios
- The plan should be tested at least once a year
30The Disaster Recovery Plan
- In conclusion
- Healthcare Disaster Recovery Planning is a
comprehensive and complex process that needs keen
assessments and evaluation. - In order to create and effective plan you must
- First Assess
- Second Determine your objective
- Third Determine the requirements
- Fourth Develop the plan
- Fifth Implement the plan
- Six Test the plan
- Seven Keep the plan up to date.
31Always Remember this.
Being proactive with a disaster recovery and or
contingency plan will ensure a planned reaction
to mitigate an unplanned business, clinical or
systems disruption during a disaster
situation Charlie Olmeda
Questions and Answers
- Thank you
- For more information on
- Healthcare Disaster Recovery Planning
- please contact Charles Olmeda at
- (704) 414-6637 or (704) 641-9535
- colmeda_at_hcitservices.com