Disaster preparedness is about expecting the unexpected and planning for it accordingly,” said Jim Francis, IT chief technology officer and vice president of technology and shared services. “For IT, this means doing whatever it takes to ensure our networks, systems and applications are continuously available and accessible, so everyone can do their jobs. For everyone, it means being prepared.”

Personal Preparedness

For a severe weather event, like a hurricane or tornado, everyone at HM is assigned a role — ride out or recovery. You should have already acknowledged this in MARS and validated that you understand the responsibilities as stated in your department’s Emergency Management Plan.

Please be sure your contact information is updated in MARS, so you can receive special systemwide text and email announcements in case of an emergency. To update your contact information, go to the MARS portal. Log in with your user ID and password, find the Personal Details section and select Contact Details. Under Phone, select the + icon to add a phone number. You can also click on an existing phone number to change or delete it.

Important: It’s crucial that your cell phone number is labeled “mobile” so you can receive emergency texts.

Preparing for an Epic or Other Disaster

If you use Epic, take these steps so you’re prepared for a downtime:

• Review the specific tasks and responsibilities for your role and department.
• Complete the Epic Downtime Preparedness training in LMS (course #1619011).
• Visit our IT downtime webpage at houstonmethodist.org/downtime. In addition to a calendar, it includes links to updated forms and other resources.
• Practice the workflows and review any processes, so you know what to do.
• Locate the downtime computer and downtime kit for your unit. Validate that your downtime kit is fully stocked with all necessary forms for downtime documentation.

In addition to the above, nurse informaticists at each hospital conduct quarterly Epic downtime drills to test your knowledge. Unfortunately, the last two drills indicated significant needs for improvement and opportunities for re-education.

“As important as our move to Epic has been, it’s also made the use of paper-based forms a lost skill. When phones and computers aren’t available, everyone — from our nurses, PCAs and therapists to housekeeping, front desk staff and patient transport — need to know what to do and how,” said Lisa Stephenson, chief nursing informatics officer.

You should also be prepared if any of the applications you use on a regular basis are temporarily unavailable. These include phones and clinical communications devices, printers and barcode scanners and applications like Epic, IV pumps, telemetry systems or insurance verification resources, just to name a few. 

Systemwide Readiness

While we each have individual responsibilities to know what to do in a disaster, several HM departments are also addressing opportunities for better preparedness.

Health Information Management (HIM) is in the process of reviewing downtime forms, updating and standardizing them as needed, then re-issuing. Where appropriate, many of these forms are also being digitized and added to downtime computers to reduce the reliance on paper. When a hardcopy is needed, make sure you have adequate quantities of the latest versions in your unit’s downtime kit.

IT Planning for Disaster

Meanwhile, IT continuously works to ensure our network servers, printers, workstations, communications devices and nearly 750 unique applications are safe from all sorts of threats. Efforts include:

• Environmental monitoring and cooling systems (using Intelligent Locations) to ensure labs and network data centers don’t overheat.
• Biannual disaster recovery drills that simulate the process of electronically moving HM data and applications between our two data centers.
• Email monitoring systems to scan all incoming emails against any hacking threats. These systems stop more than one million threats every day.
• When possible, the use of cloud-based data centers, to maximize security and functionality. Last December, we moved Epic data to the cloud and it’s now hosted by Epic Corp. We’re currently working to replace MARS with Workday, another cloud-based tool.
• Relocating our remaining systems and patient data to two remote data centers that operate at the same time, allows us to switch between data centers with minimal disruption. This is scheduled to start later this summer and will take approximately two years to complete.

During an actual emergency, these efforts can help you to continue using our systems, like Epic, MARS or other applications.

Practice Makes Perfect

Preparedness isn’t a one-time activity. Being ready for anything at any time requires not only knowledge, but also time to review and practice what you know. This is true at home and at work. With an obligation to ensure our patients’ care and safety, we must be prepared to weather any storm. The threats — be they environmental, mechanical or technical — are very real. Agree on and have a plan. Review and practice the plan routinely. In doing so, you’ll increase your ability to respond effectively not “if” but “when” a disaster occurs.