As a healthcare practice you are responsible for protecting your patients’ sensitive information, especially when disasters strike. This is just one of the main reasons you need a robust disaster recovery plan. You must be prepared for when technology fails or is compromised so you can continue to care for your patients, keep their data secure, and stay in regulatory compliance. Learn how to make an effective IT disaster recovery plan that will keep your practice running no matter what comes your way.
Conduct a Risk Assessment
Disaster recovery plans should make you ready for anything. From cyberattacks, to hardware failures, to natural disasters you need to have a plan in place to navigate each of these potential threats. Without one you will be ill prepared to deal with equipment failure, a complete system shutdown, and even loss of patient data. These disasters can severely hinder or halt your practice’s ability to care for your patients. Creating a detailed plan now will give you steps to follow in the future when a disaster does occur. Now instead of having to figure out how to start the recovery process, you will have a plan to follow which will reduce stress and save time.
Start by looking at the possible disasters that could happen to your practice. Determine how likely these risks are and what the consequences of each one would be. Then organize these risks based on the severity of each one’s impact on your practice. Start with the worst scenario and work your way down from there, creating a plan for each disaster. This way you protect your business from every angle.
Proactive Steps
One of the most important aspects of a disaster recovery plan is its ability to minimize the impact of potential setbacks. You can’t stop disaster from striking, but you can put systems in place to prepare for it.
Backups
Conducting regular backups is a big part of preparation as it ensures your patients’ information isn’t lost even if your database crashes. To effectively backup your data use the 3-2-1 approach and keep important information on at least two different media types and at least one of the backups off-site.
Recovery Sites
Preparing for an IT disaster isn’t just about backing up your data. It’s also about choosing the right recovery site. In case your practice loses power, you need to have an alternate healthcare space you can send patients to who rely on technology-based care. Not only will this keep your patients safe but it will also better your reputation as a prepared and caring practice.
Training
A disaster recovery plan is useless if your staff isn’t trained on it. They need to know what to do in case of emergency as well. Whether they’re working to recover critical systems and information or calling backup locations to get patients moved, everyone should have a job to do to get your practice back on its feet.
Test and Maintain Your Plan
It isn’t enough to create a disaster recovery plan, you must also test it before you implement it. Schedule regular drills to get everyone in the habit of what to do when an emergency happens. The more you practice for an emergency the more ready you will be for the real thing.
Remember, your plan should be adaptable and constantly improving. Conduct regular reviews of your plan to incorporate changes in technology, staff, and regulations. You should also get feedback from your staff after every drill and real incident to see what needs to be improved on. Making these necessary revisions keeps your plan up to date, which makes it as effective as possible.
Reactive Steps
There are certain steps everyone must have in their disaster recovery plan in order to successfully navigate unplanned incidents. First, you need to evaluate the impact of the disaster and how much it affected your practice. This will narrow down your scope of disrupted systems and help you prioritize what technology needs to be fixed and what data needs to be recovered first. Carefully assessing all your complex technology may take time, but it’s necessary so you can get these machines working well again. Now you won’t be running around trying to fix random problems all at once, but know which ones take priority.
You’ll also want to keep your staff, patients, and stakeholders informed about the issues and how your plan to solve them. Not only will this help your staff know what they need to do next, but this level of transparency will build your patients’ trust in your practice. You’ll also need to coordinate communication with external partners or other healthcare sites for support to keep things moving.
Protect Your Practice with Strategy IT!
Creating and implementing a strong IT disaster recovery plan is how you can prepare for and get through incidents that disrupt technology in your practice. This preparation involves identifying risks, instilling proactive measures, and continuously testing and optimizing your plan to keep it up to date.
It can take valuable time and effort to make and maintain an effective recovery plan. Strategy IT is here to protect your practice and help it recover when disasters do occur. Book a conversation today to learn more about how to keep your patients and their information safe from external threats.
