HEALTH INDUSTRY ONLINE - Preparing for Pandemics and other Crisis Situations

On February 6, 2007, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released guidance on preparing workplaces for an influenza pandemic. The guide, available for viewing here OSHA3327pandemic.PDF, emphasizes that comprehensive planning is essential to minimize a pandemic’s impact on your business. The guide provides general infection-control guidance for all types of workplaces, describes the differences between seasonal, avian and pandemic influenza, and presents information on the nature of a potential pandemic, how the virus is likely to spread and how exposure is likely to occur.

While flu pandemic planning is important, it is just one facet of the crisis management plan that all companies should have in place. Companies that prepare a crisis response plan will be prepared to react quickly to reduce the economic and human impact of a crisis situation. For example, the Valero refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, was up and running three weeks after hurricane Rita knocked out the refinery’s power and scattered its workforce. In contrast, other refineries in the area suffered less hurricane damage than Valero, but took weeks and even months to restart operations.

A crisis management plan should review and address crisis response steps under human resource policies, vendor contracts including insurance coverage, and should identify points of integration with relevant state and local crisis plans.

The crisis planning process should first identify who is necessary to sustain business-necessary functions in the event of a pandemic or other type of crisis and develop ways to function in the absence of one or more of these people. Second, the company should review key vendor contracts to ensure the company is protected in case of nonperformance due to a disaster. Force majeur, or “Act of God”, clauses are very important in contracts in order to avoid or minimize contractual liabilities in a crisis situation. Obviously, these negotiations must be undertaken before a crisis is presented. Third, Human Resource programs must anticipate the potentially massive medical benefits documentation that must be handled in a pandemic crisis, including local notifications and quarantine procedures, as well as the creation of contact lists and information disbursement avenues.

Finally, the Company must understand state and local crisis management plans so that they can coordinate the Company’s recovery with state and local government operations. For example, the Valero refinery was able to quickly recover from hurricane Rita in part because Valero management arranged for employees with proper identification to bypass roadblocks leading into Port Arthur.

By definition, one can never fully prepare for a crisis. But by taking time now to prepare a crisis management plan, companies can be better prepared to respond when a crisis does occur.