Preparing for the Worst — Disaster Recovery
We have been working on the next issue of ADA New Dentist News and one of the pieces is about the importance of disaster preparedness.
An electrical outage is usually just an inconvenience. But if the power was down for an extended period in your community, would that impact your ability to keep your practice open?
It’s no fun to think about a catastrophe, but a plan could make the difference between surviving a crisis and closing a practice’s doors forever.
The ADA has a process to guide dentists through the steps of creating a business recovery plan. Go ahead, just take a look at what’s involved in creating a plan—while it’s more demanding than doing nothing at all, it is probably much less difficult than you might fear.
But what about a situation where the worst has happened?
The ADA Foundation understands how difficult it can be to recover from an unexpected calamity. To help dentists in their time of need, the ADA Foundation’s Emergency Disaster Assistance Grant Program may provide up to $2,000 in immediate financial assistance to help meet eligible dentists’ most urgent and vital needs immediately following a declared disaster – such as food, bottled water, clothing, blankets, medicine and medical supplies, and emergency shelter. Any dentist who is a victim of a disaster may apply to the ADA Foundation for a grant. The ADAF’s Emergency Disaster Assistance Grants are not intended for more long-term needs such as rebuilding homes and or other structures, or replacing household and personal belongings. In addition, funds cannot be used to replace lost income.
Great information to have and also to pass on to the staff. We always need to be ready for any type of disaster.
Thank you for the refresher. Lessons learned from 9/11, Katrina and the super typhoon that brought a devastation in the Philippines, most of us are awakened by the reality that a disaster can come into our city at any time. Thinking ahead to the possible disaster is an important part of managing a crisis. This emergency and disaster recovery planning should be shared in every dental treatment here in US. Preparing and planning for a disaster will help secure the survivability and the fast recovery of your practice.
Thank you for the post and information you have provided. In Texas you always have to be prepared for anything.
Sometimes it’s not enough to drop your backup drive in your briefcase. There is much more to think about than just backups. How fast can you get a new file server. Do you have all your software handy? A good plan is essential.