Emergency Management

Involves preparing for and mitigating emergencies before they happen. Some other names associated to Emergency Management (EM) are Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP), Emergency Operations Plan (EOPs), Risk Management and Disaster Recovery (DR).

In healthcare, EM can play a larger role then in other businesses. In most businesses your EM is a continuity plan to take care of business needs in the event of an emergency or disaster. In healthcare your business is emergencies most of the time. And your EM plans have to incorporate business continuity and the responsibilities to your community. This can happen in both an internal event such as a fire, or external like a Medical Surg from your community or another that inundates your resources.

Most organizations have some form of requirement to fill when it comes to EM. Below are some of the authorities and known requirements.

The Joint Commission - EC.4.13 through EC.4.18 and IM.2.30

Federal/State/Local Government agencies - HSPD 20 and NSPD 51

HIPAA - Security Standard

SOX, ISOs, GLBA, PCI - May only be applicable to non healthcare organizations like banks, public market and credit card businesses

-- DustinCole - 12 Sep 2008