COOP

CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS PLAN

Let’s say you are a doctor with many patients and you receive a call from the police at 2 in the morning. They are reporting to you that there is a fire at your medical office and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the sprinklers worked and your office was saved. The bad news is that all of your paper documents are now saturated into a pile of paper with ink stains where irreplaceable patient data was. Or, it could be even worse news that the papers burned and are now ashes. Patients who have serious conditions no longer have a record of treatments, medications, undiagnosed conditions may go unseen longer than needed, family history records are gone forever, the list goes on and on. In a medical office, that spells disaster, possible legal action, or worse.

What we think is the primary, but often overlooked, reason for converting all your company’s paper documents is to ensure you have a good Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). Efficient disaster recovery can mean a company, government, or healthcare institution reduces the risk of losing the patient and customer base, and economic growth it has worked years to achieve. If disaster strikes, information accessibility is critical to resume normal business operations.

The essential things that your COOP should address are those organizational and essential functions that must be continued under any and all circumstances. As a priority, your company should:

1. Identify all functions, and then determine which ones must be absolutely continued under all circumstances in case of disaster

2. Prioritize these essential functions

3. Determine and establish requirements for staffing and resources

4. Develop a plan for coordination of supporting activities

5. Establish a plan to perform additional functions as the situation requires and permits.

A centralized digital document management repository, with backups in another location is just one part of a good Continuity of Operations Plan. This repository may be large or small, depending on the size and needs of the company or medical office.