Health care organizations have become more reliant on third-party services to perform everyday operational activities that are critical to clinical workflows and financial cash flows. Health care leaders often rely on key third-party services that are cloud-based or off-premises to help simplify their IT infrastructure and manage costs.
The impact of the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, which Hall Render discussed here, is an example of how reliant various health care organizations have become on other organizations to deliver key services that impact patient care, clinical workflows and financial stability. There have always been some dependencies on third-party systems but the proliferation of moving to Software as a Service (“SaaS”) solutions for health care information systems is unique.
Preparing for operational impacts involves developing and testing business continuity plans that address any business operational risks, which include information systems and other systems that require specific operational controls. Unfortunately, most health care businesses have not reviewed their business continuity plans to include the impacts of these SaaS solutions and at most only test business continuity for IT systems that are within their control.
The Hall Render Advisory Services Advantage
Hall Render Advisory Services has extensive experience in helping optimize business continuity plans by ensuring that all operational impacts are identified, evaluated and included in any testing strategies. We start with evaluating your business continuity plans to ensure that all operational systems are appropriately identified. This involves business, clinical and information systems leaders to ensure that a thorough and effective review of the operational impact of any system outage, including these SaaS solutions, can be incorporated into your business continuity plan.
Our team provides a valuable resource for health care organizations looking to review and optimize their business continuity plans. Contact Hall Render Advisory Services or visit HallRenderAS.com to learn more about how we can help your organization.
If you have any questions, please contact:
- Dan Cumberland at dcumberland@hallrenderas.com or (443) 951-7050;
- John Norling at jnorling@hallrenderas.com or (214) 615-2010;
- Mark Branstetter at mbranstetter@HallRenderAS.com or (615) 423-6651;
- Michael Latcha at mlatcha@hallrenderas.com or (269) 207-6382; or
- Your primary Hall Render Advisory Services contact.
Hall Render and Hall Render Advisory Services blog posts and articles are intended for informational purposes only. For ethical reasons, Hall Render attorneys cannot—outside of an attorney-client relationship—answer specific questions that would be legal advice.
