As a Miami native, it’s bizarre to hear such hullabaloo about this Hurricane Sandy-Frankenstorm behemoth, which is apparently part-hurricane, part-blizzard and perhaps even a cheesy electronic music track with an accompanying video shot in the Mojave. The Sandra Dee memes are adding to this thing’s mythology.
We’re experts in dissecting ‘disaster marketing’ techniques, know when home improvement stores and grocers are least crowded and ensure our laptops and cell phones are fully charged at least a day before the event. And if you need some hurricane survival tips, there is perhaps no group better fit than South Floridians.
But given the likelihood of blackouts and perhaps some flash flooding in natural disasters of this nature, what do healthcare providers need to know, and how can health IT help?
In the event of a large-scale natural disaster, the first thing providers need to worry about is the very spontaneous and perhaps massive need for emergency treatment. Large waves of patients at local facilities aren’t unheard of, and providers need to both make a list of expected ailments and join forces in their communities.
After the Japan earthquake of 2011, for instance, Rikuzentakata City established temporary health clinics staffed with local doctors, providing community-based medicine focused on which physician each patient felt most comfortable with. Likewise, initiatives to improve the nutritional status of those affected by the earthquake were established in collaboration with UNICEF.
With capable, cloud-based EHRs in place, disaster relief efforts would rely on the interoperability they need to obtain patient health information in the event of an emergency, especially if a patient’s PCP’s office is flooded or destroyed.
Worrying about data security seems pretty obvious, and EHR-reliant providers will be better off in the event of a disaster, seeing as they won’t have to worry about paper records being misplaced or looted in the storm’s aftermath. But, it’s still never proper practice to leave your data in the office, particularly in the case of providers using client-server EHRs.
It’s imperative you put in place a HIPAA disaster recovery plan, which states how operations will be conducted in an emergency situation and assign specific tasks to staff members. Not to mention, you must ensure the transport of data without violating HIPAA standards for privacy and security and establish safeguards to restore said data.
However, keep in mind that compared to cloud-based EHRs, systems of the client-server variety aren’t as much use to providers during natural disasters – they only increase the needs and complexity of your HIPAA disaster recovery plan.
Case in point: a 2010 tornado wrecked St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Missouri and knocked their client-server EHR out. It took them seven days to have the system up and running again.
While some of their old papers were reportedly blown over 70 miles away, a cloud-based system would’ve meant no restoration necessary. Not to mention, expensive IT equipment could’ve ended up in the hands of cleanup crews or plunderers.
Providers want to be lightweight and mobile without having to worry about compromising data. Web-based EHRs live up to this expectation by storing databases remotely, possessing redundancy and business continuity capacities your office needs.
All in all, the most important thing for our Northeastern physicians to do in light of Sandy Frankenstorm is to be accessible to patients and communities, ensure the hardware is safe, leave no data floating around and be home to protect your own families. We trust you’ll all farewell.
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