States Join to Improve Emergency Planning and Response

Eight Southeastern states are working together to improve how frail and elderly citizens are cared for during a major disaster.  Leadership from the state emergency command centers and long term care (LTC) organizations in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina met at a May Hurricane Summit to improve how LTC needs are incorporated into disaster planning. Federal level representatives from FEMA, CMS, and HHS also participated, along with representatives from the AARP.

"In a disaster, we must ensure that we care for our most vulnerable citizens first," said LuMarie Polvika West, of the Florida Healthcare Association, the hosts of the Hurricane Summit. "Integrating the needs of the elderly and disabled into regional emergency planning processes can save lives."

In the recent past, the elderly and disabled have often been the most negatively affected by the consequences of a major disaster. The CDC determined that the elderly accounted for only 15 percent of New Orlean's 2005 population, but 70 percent of the deaths from Hurricane Katrina. In addition, at least 139 storm-related fatalities were reported from nursing homes as a result of Katrina.

At the summit, The Florida Healthcare Association shared a new computer model that supports LTC administrators in developing emergency and evacuation plans for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Both the summit and the computer template development were made possible by a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation.  The group also reviewed results of a transportation study and assessed the ongoing challenges of emergency transportation deficiencies, which include a lack of national or regional contracts with major bus companies.

BCP Who?

If you're in the healthcare sector, there's a group you should know about. BCPWHO (Business Continuity Planning Workgroup  for Healthcare Organizations) is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership in the advancement of business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency management through collaboration and research.

BCPWHO represents nearly 100 individual members from healthcare institutions across the United States and Canada. The group's goals are to: "Develop the science and technique relative to the continuation of business activity and operations in the event of a disaster. Create a scholarly community in which professionals and investigators from around the world can introduce new work for peer review and discussion. And influence policy, management, and education of operational continuity and disaster recovery for academic and nonprofit healthcare organizations." For more information, visit www.bcpwho.org.

Are You a Single Point of Failure?

If you're having dinner with family or friends are find yourself "scrolling your BlackBerry while you're passing the peas," there's a good chance your work-life balance is off kilter, says Joan Gurvis, campus director of the Colorado Springs Center for Creative Leadership and co-author of Finding Your Balance.

Much like a business continuity program, a healthy work-life balance must be developed and maintained. Without it, you will drain your "energy stores" and "ultimately become the weakest link in the chain," Gurvis cautions.

"Work-life balance is becoming increasingly important in today's business environment because business environments are becoming increasingly complex. And so the things that you are asked to do require more energy," she says. "Leadership requires a lot of energy, and the well is not unlimited. It needs to be replenished."

Recent research conducted by the center shows that "leaders perceived as having more balance in their lives were also perceived as being 16 percent more effective than those not having balance," Gurvis says, adding that "balanced people are better performers and more effective leaders."

How is such harmony achieved? "It is really important for people to define what values are core to them. We're not talking about truth and honesty. We're talking about their definition of success." She suggests doing a "value sort" to examine factors including "family interaction, how they achieve goals, and their sense of economic security." Like a BIA, a value sort should be repeated periodically, as values change over time. For more information, visit www.ccl.org.

Way Beyond Banking: Beer and BCP

You expect your bank to have a continuity program, but what about the maker of your favorite boutique brew? Boulevard Brewing Company, the largest specialty brewer in the Midwest, produces "fresh, flavorful beers using the finest traditional ingredients and the best of both old and new brewing techniques." The company offers four beers year-round: Pale Ale, Unfiltered Wheat Beer, Bully! Porter, and Dry Stout. As well as seasonal beers like Irish Ale in the spring, ZO-N in summer, Bob's '47 in the fall, Nutcracker Ale in the winter.

Boulevard was born in 1988, when founder John McDonald started construction of the brewery in a turn-of-the-century brick building on Kansas City's historic Southwest Boulevard. A vintage Bavarian brewhouse was installed, and the first batches of beer were produced in the fall of 1989. That November, the first keg of Boulevard Pale Ale was delivered - in the back of McDonald's pickup truck  - to a restaurant just a few blocks away. Today, Boulevard beers are available in eleven Midwestern states.

For Boulevard, business continuity is a new venture, says Purveyor of Technology Tony Lux. First, Lux sorted out the IT environment. "Before I got here, they multiple consultants doing different things. It became overwhelming to hire somebody who'd spend a month trying to figure out what the last person did. When I got here, everything was running on one machine and it was just kind of hodge-podged together. We've now separated services out and added a true data center."

"We've also become more reliant on data in the brewing process," he says. "The brewing systems that we use today are completely automated. Recipe management and things like that are all stored in a database. So when you brew, it knows how much water you need at this point, when to flush it, what valve to open. All that stuff is in a big database. If the database goes down and the servers go down, we're not able to brew. And since brewing is what pays the bills, that's a problem."

The production system also sends e-mail alerts when a glitch or potential outage triggers an alarm. "If something is going on, it e-mails us. It will send an e-mail to a cell phone and we can turn it off remotely using BlackBerrys."

Addressing e-mail continuity was a key concern for Lux. "E-mail is the number one way our people communicate," he says. I knew I had to have e-mail up and running at all times. I also needed new spam and virus software. Lux settled on MessageOne's EMS to provide both.

Next on his BCP list, is addressing power concerns, Lux says. "The building we're in is built like a tank, so I'm not really worried about tornadoes. Power is the biggest issue we're going to have." For more information, visit www.boulevard.com.

Inside the Numbers

• 4 out of 5 managers and executives responsible for business continuity and availability predict spending increases for 2007.*
• 9 out of 10 decision-makers who reported higher planned spending in disaster-tolerant solutions, backup and recovery, security, and IT service management.*
• 69% of board members say implementing the right IT strategy is very important in compliance.**
• 57% of board members say it is very important in managing risk.**
• 14% are actively involved in IT strategy.**
• 13% feel their company monitors and measure the value of IT very well.**
• 56% say they get appropriate justification for major IT investments.**
• 29% say the justification is appropriate at the beginning, but that updates are lacking.**
• 15% say they get neither appropriate initial justification nor updates during the project.
• 22% blame IT strategy for a significant failure in achieving particular goals.**
• 44% see a lack of alignment between IT and business strategies.**
  *Hewlett-Packard/GCR Custom Research
  ** Source: Corporate Board Member/Deloitte Consulting