Please Share Feedback


Questions, comments, suggestions? Let us know what you think on our Forum.

To contact us privately, please use our contact form.

What three things are critical at the beginning of a downtime?

Author: Elyse, PMP, CPHIMS
June 7, 2009

Add comments

Unfortunately, since we don't have infinite supplies of money to invest in infrastructure within healthcare. Our systems sometimes go down. Recently, this happened at my organization. Afterwards and regrouping on the subject, one question which was asked by new leaders was "What three things are critical at the beginning of a downtime?" I've decided to share those answers here at our ARQ (Answer Reader's Questions) and expand upon them a bit. What three things are critical at the beginning of a downtime
  1. Assessment - The first item should be to do a quick assessment. Be understanding that there will be a lot of unknowns. However, it should be obvious if this outage is bigger than a 15 minute timeframe. If it is anticipated to be longer than 14 minutes, escalate upwards and get someone who can do communications with the hospital. The technician should keep assessing the problem and begin resolution
  2. Communications - The second item is to begin communications. Often this needs to be the technician escalating upwards for the first communication, and then an appointed communicator. The communicator should field calls, explain the situation and touch base with the individual or team accountable for resolving the problem. Communications should be in many forms, and with a regular frequency. The communicator will make the determination if the situation needs to be brought before the hospital oncall administrator and to engage the Business Continuity Guide.
  3. Resources - The next item is to get a labor pool or resources into the situation. This role should be done by the next contacted individuals. They should activate the call tree, set up a communication line for the technicians, or even a centralized command post. Finally, making a list of who is available from an IT stance.
These tasks and role assignments normally get things going. The determination to engage your business continuity guide will bring formality to tasks and provide a guidebook of what to do, with what roles, and how to do it. As always all suggestions and insights are welcomed. If you have any questions, I'd welcome hearing them.

Further Reading:

Subscribe and Share!

Did you enjoy this article? Your feedback is very important! I'd like to invite you to keep up to date with the latest posts from Anticlue. We offer several venues. If you have some questions, help can be found here.
 

0 Comments to “What three things are critical at the beginning of a downtime?”


« Five Signs that you need Business Relationship Managers for Healthcare How to implement organizational change - We have a sense of urgency but what is our purpose and strategic vision? »

Please share your thoughts and suggestions

 
Powered by Movable Type 4.31-en | Elyse Nielsen ©2003 - 2010
  Listed on BlogShares   Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.