Problem
Existing standards for BCM assessment (e.g. ISO 22301) are labor intensive and costly. Few healthcare suppliers currently possess this level of industry certification. Providers lack a practical toolset by which to validate whether a trading partner has appropriate BCM fundamentals in place. Suppliers lack a common framework by which to communicate and provide evidence to their resiliency preparations.
Background
Business Continuity Management Implementing and maintaining a business continuity management (BCM) program is essential to the development of business continuity plans to ensure continuous delivery of products and services to customers.
Purpose
A BCM program is intended to prepare for, provide and maintain controls and capabilities for managing an organization’s overall ability to continue to operate during disruptions within acceptable time frames at predefined capacity.
Business Continuity Plan
Documented information that guides an organization to respond to a disruption and resume, recover and restore the delivery of products and services consistent with its business continuity objectives.
Assessment
An effective business continuity plan will:
- Safeguard personnel, contractors, vendors, and other constituents
- Meet the requirements to continue and recover critical organization functions
- Protect the organization’s critical functions and assets
- Reduce the likelihood of disruption
- Shorten the period of disruption
Recommendation
Deploy this framework for all essential supply chain relationships. Future iterations may be augmented by evidenced based reviews to further validate BCM practices. Such reviews could conceptually be self-serve and validated by the organization’s internal audit.
