Preparing for Disasters
First look at damage to the data center. Photo: Columbus Regional HospitalThe original data center was destroyed in short order, with its equipment immersed in creek water, mud, corn stalks from local fields, reagents from the submerged lab, and other contaminants that made the computer drives useless. Fortunately, the hospital kept tape backups of data at another location in Indianapolis, so there was minimal data loss, Boyer says. The flood destroyed the hospital’s phone system, forcing the staff to rely on cell phones.Remarkably, Columbus Regional was operational less than five months after the flood. The Carolinas MED-1 mobile emergency unit arrived June 23, 2008. MED-1 provided emergency care for the area until CRH opened the Emergency Department in the main building on August 1. On October 27, 2008 CRH reopened patient care services, including surgery. Actual damages totaled $171 million.Today the hospital’s primary data center is housed in the new facility three miles off site, and the secondary data center is located on the first floor of the main hospital. The electrical switches have been moved out of the basement, as have the pharmacy and laboratory, which are now on the hospital’s main floor.Boyer places a lot of value on the hospital’s expert IT staff, which was hired in 1997 to develop the IT department as part of the hospital’s strategic IS plan. “We did not contract out implementations or technical support. We kept the knowledge here at Columbus Regional,” she says. “We had a very structured methodology on how we implemented systems; designing, building, testing and training; and how we keep it. Good relationships with vendors also were important,” she says.Just prior to the flood, CRH participated in a multi-county disaster recovery drill based on a potential terrorism incident. The hospital is now expanding on the command center model that was developed then. One of the biggest lessons of the flood had to do with the role reversal: hospitals traditionally receive disaster victims, but are not usually victims themselves. “That was a huge turnaround for us,” she says.All of the CIOs I interviewed for the article recognize the huge challenge of preparing for catastrophe, an undertaking even more difficult when hospitals are faced with budgetary constraints. Ironically, the best one can hope for is that all of that preparation helps to make sure that nothing happens…or when it does, the hospital can recover as quickly as possible, and learn some valuable lessons for the next time disaster strikes.