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In this Issue:
Some days, I think that I'm a lightning rod for disasters. Two weeks ago, I was in San Diego when the SanDee school shootings occurred. Later in this newsletter, I talk about how to teach your child some safety tips. The L.A. rains were expected for all four days but just missed us. I missed the major snowstorms that were pounding the east coast. Also when I was there, the Coast Guard made a huge drug bust and we saw them escort a fishing boat into San Diego harbor with half-a-billion dollars in drugs (8 tons) on board.
Last week, I was in England where the hoof-and-mouth disease (foot-and-mouth to them) was in full swing. The problems associated with that disease are bigger than we expected. Almost no one eats beef or lamb. Steakhouses are empty and people are getting sick of fish. How many ways can you eat a mackerel ? And now, the disease has spread to Scotland, Ireland, France, Holland. Even horse racing has been cancelled.
As I write this, I'm in Oakland to experience the rolling electric blackouts that are plaguing California. The problems here include no traffic lights, many stores closing early and thousands of businesses unable to continue working. The blackouts are only supposed to last two hours at a time but that is enough to disrupt business. There is something surreal about watching newscasters sitting in the dark and "reading" the news. Kind of like radio. The amount of short-term money spent to meet the problem (that is, to purchase power) is $4.2 billion.
The other thing to expect throughout this year is an increase in the amount of employee sabotage. As I have said before, a downturn in the economy causes cutbacks in staff and sabotage results. In our society, a job in a fundamental part of our being and we usually spend more of each weekday in job-related activities than all others combined. When that job is taken away, there is a deep-seated rejection, like being the last kid in the playground picked to play ball. If an employee has worked for the company for eighteen, or twenty or twenty-two years and all of a sudden is let go (fired, dehired, reassigned to nowhere, etc), the resentment can be injurious to your company. Even retraining and exit counselling isn't enough for some. Be warned.
"There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them."
For the first time in the healthcare industry in the United States, business continuity planning and disaster recovery capability will become mandatory for all healthcare organizations. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), passed by the US Congress in 1996, has as part of its phased implementation "Security Guidelines," (referring to information security), which mandates that all healthcare organizations that handle healthcare data comply with data security and business continuity standards within two years. The final regulations were published in the Federal Register at the end of 2000. The "Security Guidelines" with business continuity requirements were expected in the first quarter of 2001. The penalties and fines for noncompliance will be substantial. Any organization that does not show due diligence in starting this process will be in noncompliance. This legislative mandate has a strategic goal of reducing costs in healthcare by standardizing data processing in the healthcare industry, as a prelude to establishing a centralized clearinghouse for claims processing.
The general objectives are to guarantee health insurance coverage of employees, reduce health care fraud and abuse, implement administrative simplications and protect the health information of individuals against access without consent or authorization. HIPAA mandates the development of business continuity planning capacity by February, 2003. It is therefore essential that all healthcare agencies launch the BCP program in a professional and straightforward manner to be able to set the foundation for the next phases of the BCP process. This critical first phase will not only develop the framework for the business continuity planning, but will also demonstrate due diligence from the beginning.
The HIPAA business continuity requirements spell out the elements necessary as the foundation for BCP, but don't necessarily provide the roadmap of how to best achieve the goal of BCP capacity. Creating an internal structure for BCP for your healthcare agency will enable the goals of updating/validating the BIA at the same time developing the organizational resources and will to lay the foundation for an internal, repeatable process.
ref: Paul Coleman
I recently saw an interview with Bob Stuber talking about Escape School and their website at www.escapeschool.com concerning what children should be taught about school shootings and abductions. Some of the things he said about these two topics follow:
We have scheduled several new dr seminars
(Business & Disaster Continuity Planning) will be in
Come and learn how to be ready for all disasters.
Attendees at all of our seminars learn all about dr, receive a full, registered version of our world-renown software system, Phoenix 2000b and each develop a disaster recovery plan for their own company. All attendees can also attend any future seminar for a small fee. The schedule and seminar content can be seen at www.binomial.com. Still a few seats left.
DALLAS (CNN) March 29, 2001 -- Within the first days after the arrest of Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing, investigators turned up information that he might have planned other attacks, the FBI told CNN.
"There were other federal buildings that were mentioned," Danny Defenbaugh, the lead FBI investigator, told CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti in an exclusive interview, referring to potential targets in Dallas and Omaha.
The April 19, 1995 blast killed 168 people, including 19 children, in the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
The taped interview will be shown tonight on ABC 's "PrimeTime Thursday". In this interview, McVeigh said he did not know there was a day-care center inside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. "If I had known there was an entire day-care center, it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage," McVeigh said.
Full story at http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/03/28/mcveigh.fbi/index.html
Ed. Note: Apparently, McVeigh had intended to bomb a building in St. Paul, Minnesota instead of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Computer security experts have identified what they say is the first virus capable of infecting both the Windows and Linux computer operating systems.
W32.Winux is what's known as a "proof of concept" virus. The virus was sent to an anti-virus company, and it is not now causing any problems for computer users.
"It's a technical achievement within the virus writing community, in this case the ability to infect both Windows and Linux executable files.
At this time W32.Winux does not carry a destructive payload, and it is not "in the wild," meaning it is not spreading via e-mail or the Internet.
You will find links to DRP sites of interest at: Links
Over 800 links are now listed here.
Interesting links may be found at: www.fema.gov/fema/whatsnew.html
Also check www.colorado.edu/hazards/sites/sites.html
Also check www.colorado.edu/hazards/dr/currentdr.html
BINOMIAL Business/Disaster Recovery Planning Seminars: www.binomial.com
| WASHINGTON | May | 14-16 | 2001 |
| DALLAS, TEXAS | June | 4-6 | 2001 |
| ORLANDO | September | 16 | 2001 |
| LAS VEGAS | October | 22-24 | 2001 |
| PASADENA | November | 5-7 | 2001 |
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