If you are an owner, administrator or director of an HHA, a nursing home or an ALF in Florida, you are no doubt familiar with ACHA's requirements regarding your organization's comprehensive emergency management plan (CEMP). For proper licensure, you've completed the relevant forms to make sure your emergency management procedures and contacts are clearly defined and up to date. Is there more to ensuring your agency is able to continue to provide services to your clients, residents or patients in the event of any type of business interruption - disastrous or not?
Consider the following:
Do you have some type of mechanism in place to continually reinforce with key staff members their role in emergency management and recovery efforts?
Do you have a process to continually challenge your staff members to complete family disaster plans and to take other precautionary preparedness steps to increase the likelihood that they are available to assist in your agency's recovery efforts, know that their families and property are safe and secure?
Have you taken stock of your organization's hardware, software, office equipment, furniture, etc., so that you could provide the necessary documentation to the insurance agency in the event of some type of loss?
If you answered "no" to any of the questions above, perhaps there are other steps that you could be taking now, prior to any emergency, to minimize the impact to your organization when one does occur. Ensuring that your CEMP is complete and up to date is a minimum requirement. But being fully prepared entails much more and should not stop with the CEMP.
Key staff members need to be familiar with the procedures outlined in your CEMP and more specifically, the roles they are expected to play during an emergency. There are several ways to accomplish this starting with some type of ongoing training program. We employ the use of Red Files TM - literally red file folders - that contain a customized summary of the relevant sections of the CEMP for each key staff member, in addition to any other important and relevant emergency management information they might need in the event of an emergency.
Equally important, but often forgotten is to encourage your staff members to create family emergency plans, disaster kits, etc., so that they are not scrambling to ensure the safety and security of their family's and property in the event of a disaster. While one cannot plan for every possible scenario, putting some time and thought into this prior to an emergency could be the difference between their being available to assist with your agency's recovery effort versus not. Family emergency plan templates can be downloaded from the Department of Homeland Security's Ready.gov website, (ready.gov ready.gov). At a minimum, family plans should include key contacts, family meeting locations, plans for childcare and pet care, etc. You should also encourage your staff members to complete a home inventory so that they are prepared to quickly and efficiently file any insurance claims should that become necessary. Keep in mind that in the case of a widespread disaster, the longer your key staff members are unable to get their own lives back in order, the longer it will be before they are able to focus on your organization's recovery.
And don't forget to complete an inventory of the agency's equipment, furniture, computers, etc. In the event of some type of physical damage to your office or facility, you will need this information to quickly file any insurance claims. You don't want to be scrambling to attempt to gather this information at a time when your focus should be on continuing services to your clients, residents or patients and ensuring their safety and well-being.
The considerations and suggestions above are but a few that you may want to consider to ensure your agency's overall preparedness and ability to quickly recover from any emergency. Maintaining a complete and updated CEMP not only ensures compliance with Florida statute, it lays the foundation for your preparedness activities. But don't stop there! Look beyond your CEMP to make sure that you have done everything you can to continue operation and recover quickly in the event of a disaster or other business interruption.
Derek Lee is the President of Bastion Home & Business Services, LLC, a leader in providing emergency readiness planning services to residential and small- to medium-sized business customers throughout Central Florida. Derek is committed to ensuring that Bastion's services contribute to the protection of clients' homes and businesses, with the highest degree of confidentiality, professionalism, integrity, respect and an unwavering commitment to excellence.
No comments:
Post a Comment