As repeatedly stressed in this blog, as crucial as business continuity and disaster preparedness planning are for every organization, these practices are of notable importance for industries such as healthcare in which lives are on the line.

While some healthcare organizations may have the internal resources to take all the steps to bolster ideal preparedness for an emergency situation, many smaller facilities have fewer personnel juggling more tasks. As such, planning for something not in the immediate future may be burdensome.

For organizations such as this, it would be wise to seek the assistance of a certified disaster preparedness consulting firm. These professionals can first help a healthcare practice conduct a business impact analysis in which all the organization's core processes are analyzed to understand the consequences to patient safety should they fail to run.

After undertaking this measure, preparedness consultants can then help develop solutions to the problems that were identified. For example, they can assist in negotiating the best price possible on a fully-equipped, remotely-located hot site so that should a severe weather incident, technical glitch or other catastrophe damage a primary facility, operations can immediately resume elsewhere with all the tools necessary to facilitate positive patient health outcomes.

Additionally, especially for hospitals in which patient data is so central to providing the best care possible, these consultants can help facilitate data replication in the hot site so that physicians can avoid issues related to patient allergies, duplicate medications and other problematic diagnoses.

One excellent way to obtain the assistance necessary to complete these vital preparedness tasks is by sending facility representatives to the World Conference on Disaster Management, taking place on Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.