Physician Disaster Preparedness
“What is My Role and How Does My Practice Survive?”

We are living in a vulnerable world where it is likely that we will be affected by a disaster when we least expect it.  The time to prepare and protect our home and business operation is NOW, before a disaster occurs.

There are 3 major misconceptions when thinking about disaster preparedness:

• It will not happen here
• It will not happen to me
• Someone else will be there to take care of the problem

Statistics show that worldwide between 1994 and 2003, 2.5 billion people were affected by disasters, an increase of 60% over the previous two years.  The US has suffered major economic damages, being the world leader from 1991 to 2005, with 364.94 billion dollars in losses.  Hurricane Katrina alone resulted in 125 billion dollars, lowering the GDP by 0.1%.

EPCMS has contracted through the Colorado Medical Society to participate in the Physician Disaster Preparedness Project.  For the past 5 months there have been several CME presentations and Practice Manager Classes to inform and assist in the development of an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) for physicians’ offices or clinics.  The response to these offerings has been very positive.  Unfortunately, our funding doesn’t allow us to meet with every EPCMS member to develop an individual plan. But there are ways we can help. The following are highlights from the presentation that will be of interest and help in developing your own plan.

Your clinic’s response within this framework is based on the development of an EOP. Don’t worry we will show you how!  This plan is based on mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery steps your practice would implement during a disaster.

To begin the initial steps for your clinic to develop an EOP it is necessary to:

• Complete a Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA).  An HVA is a tool that can be used to identify which hazards might be the biggest threat to your particular practice.
• Base your EOP around the hazards identified by the HVA.
• Prepare your office to respond to such types of disasters.
• Delineate appropriate steps for recovery from a disaster.
• Prepare for financial, reimbursement and documentation issues that occur as a result of a disaster.

An EOP outlines steps that will help you to be prepared to respond in advance of an emergency event.  It can be a simple plan of a few pages or more complex, depending on the office or clinic demographics, vulnerabilities and time availability.  However, there are some EOP basics that all plans should include.  Those are:

·         How will you handle “surge capacity” or the sudden influx of patients, while still maintaining your normal daily office operations?

·         Will you have sufficient staff to provide the needed care and operational support if an emergency event means extended hours or goes on for several days?  Is the staff trained and clear as to what their role will be? Is there proper and sufficient protection provided for the staff, such as in an infectious or biohazard event?

·         How would documentation be done if computer systems are down; is there a paper system to assure appropriate documentation takes place for patient care and financial recovery efforts?

·         Are you aware of or familiar with resources to identify the rules, regulations and financial reimbursement paperwork that might be necessary to recoup loss from business disruption and unplanned, unbudgeted and uncompensated care?

All of these “thinking” pieces can be mind boggling, but there are several templates available that can help.  It is a matter of literally “filling in the blanks” to customize a plan for the individual office or clinic practice.  The templates guide you through the issues that must be considered and allows you to put your thoughts and plans into an organized outline. An EOP does not have great detail; it is a reference or a guide only.  When a disaster occurs and things are hectic and stressed, this can help guide you and your staff through the steps necessary to assure that staffing, patient care and financial issues are minimized as much as possible.

The Physician Disaster Preparedness Project is designed to help you in preparing an emergency response plan for your office.  A CD, available at no cost to your office, has been developed that has several very important documents and templates that can help.  Included on the CD are:

·         A Hazard Vulnerability Assessment Toolkit.  A rather simple Excel program, created by Kaiser Permanente, walks you through the steps to assess where your practice may be most vulnerable, be that from a Natural, Hazmat, Technological or Human disaster.  It then allows you to judge the impact on the practice should that hazard occur.

·         Three templates for EOP plans; the KMA Disaster Plan, the Medical Clinic Emergency Operation Template and the CDPHE Pan Ready Guidelines for Medical Office Pandemic Readiness. The plans outline what areas need to be addressed in the building of a practice specific plan.

·         A large document, the “Public Assistance Handbook” from FEMA explains the very complex FEMA process for federal assistance, determining eligibility of work and reasonableness of cost reimbursement.

·         A Pandemic Information booklet.

·         The FEMA 90-49 (Request for Public Assistance Form.)

For a copy of this CD or for other information, please contact the Physician Disaster Preparedness Coordinator, Charlotte Schuler, RN at EPCMS, 591-2424.