In a medical office, the path from calm to chaotic can be fast and furious. An ice storm could shut down highways and prevent key personnel from arriving at the office. A wind storm could knock out electrical power, cutting off communications and access to computer records. A flu epidemic could force you to operate with a skeleton staff.
Most medical offices have a disaster recovery plan in place for dealing with disasters that continue for days or weeks; but what about short-lived disasters? A short-term weather, illness or transportation emergency can create its own kind of chaos if your office doesn’t have a disaster plan in place (see our previous post).
Today, we continue our tips on preventing small emergencies from snowballing into office chaos:
2. Create an emergency action plan that delegates responsibilities and assigns work tasks so your staff knows who is supposed to do what when key personnel are absent. Creating an emergency chain of command and duty schedule allows your staff to smoothly transition into emergency mode.
3. Keep records updated and ensure that HIPAA-compliance requirements are being met. Develop a plan for handling communication and medical services record keeping and protecting patient privacy when electrical emergencies interrupt computer access. Incorporating HIPAA-compliant medical answering services into your disaster recovery plans can help simplify this task by giving your office access to HIPAA-compliant communications.
MedConnectUSA can help your medical office handle disasters big and small. No matter what size emergency you need to plan for, MedConnectUSA’s experienced disaster recovery team has the solutions you need.