This presentation will discuss the innovative actions taken by interdisciplinary teams at an academic medical center to address contingency planning deficits identified in a SAFER assessment conducted in 2021-22. The ANIA SAFER toolkit guided the corrective action journey, including innovative training approaches, downtime drills, and business continuity technology process improvements across interdisciplinary teams.

The presentation will share various qualitative and quantitative methods used to measure progress, such as downtime kit readiness status, downtime education completion, and downtime escape game leader board. The presentation will also explore strategies and tactics that can be used by other organizations to improve their readiness for downtimes and disasters. The objectives of the presentation include analyzing approaches used to restructure the BCA process, exploring innovative approaches for downtime readiness tools and training, describing the key elements in a downtime drill, and sharing obstacles encountered and outcomes achieved.

The presentation concludes by suggesting the need to partner with the EMR vendor to develop plans for a catastrophic downtime and a plan for writing and filling prescriptions when the EMR is down around current federal guidelines for e-prescriptions. The Kotter model was used to guide the change process, with a focus on increasing the sense of urgency and building the guiding team. The presentation will share the innovative approaches used for downtime readiness tools and training, including gamification of learning tools for staff education to replace the standard learning module. The presentation will also discuss BCA readiness, which was two pronged, including assuring that each area had access to a BCA device streamlining the process to add, move, and remove a BCA. With this, the goal was access and ability to print the necessary downtime reports within 30 minutes. The presentation will share the obstacles faced and tactics used to navigate through them, including a comprehensive assessment of BCA devices in every location to assure compliance with guidelines and dynamic monitoring of BCA devices to assure they remained online. The presentation will also discuss the downtime readiness drill, which was minimally invasive to patient care and produced valuable insights for leaders into opportunities for actions to take toward downtime readiness. The presentation will share lessons learned and recommendations for future drills. The presentation will conclude by sharing quantitative and qualitative outcomes and inspiring other organizations to improve their downtime readiness.

Blair Stewart MSN

Appearances