Exercising to Develop a Business Continuity Plan

Summary: Ensuring continuity of service in any business is a priority, but in most cases, it does not impact life and death, except in a health care setting. How do you ensure that staff engage in the development and testing processes to meet their needs, as well as those of the organization, before activating their plan? This question was recently tested when a Local Health District undertook a project to rewrite the business continuity plans(BCP) to promote and increase awareness of the impact on services. After extensive research, a BCP template was developed to ensure a standardised approach throughout the Local Health District. Key stakeholders were identified and invited to meetings and exercises. To inform the development of BCPs for each facility, simulated exercises of outages were conducted. This provided information for the development of the BCPs. Scenarios covered interruptions to the supply of power, gas, both medical and natural, and water. The scenario progressed through discussion and directed questions. The exercises were recorded. This provided an opportunity for the development of the BCP to enhance current response assumptions and gain leverage for further engagement and development of robust and relevant plans. Over 100 people participated in face-to-face sessions, with the majority being disaster portfolio holders, executives, department managers, and clinical managers. A review of notes taken showed that the exercise elicited a greater appreciation by attendees of the impact (if any) on their specific service and the need for development of service-specific plans. This approach to plan development was successful as it led to the development of contemporary plans while considering facility needs and expectations. This exercise provided an opportunity to review the level of understanding of a Business Continuity plan and the impacts such outages can have on the service delivery of individual departments.