Developing a Disaster Plan or COOP (Continuity of Operations) 1. The first step in this project is to find a disaster in the news that will be your "model" for your COOP. The disaster can be any that are discussed in the Emergency Planning Power Point. 2. Review the documents - The AHIMA Disaster Toolkit and the Practical Disaster Planning for Healthcare Facilities. 3. After viewing the Disaster Planning Power Point slide of the HIM department functions, decide upon what functions will need to be ongoing, suspended, or still function with limited staff in your fictitious HIM department with your "disaster". Once you have made that decision, start your COOP. Think about the following questions when making your determination.

New CMS emergency preparedness requirements focus on continuity of operations

The 2016 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rules for risk assessment and emergency planning for Medicare and Medicaid providers require that plans consider numerous continuity factors, which can be easily included in a COOP:

• Which business functions are essential to hospital operations and should be continued during an emergency?
• What risks can the hospital reasonably expect to confront?
• What contingencies should be planned for?
• How will the location of the hospital, its clinics, offices, and suppliers impact emergency planning?
• How extensive will the impact of emergencies be on hospital operations?
• What arrangements with other hospitals, healthcare providers, suppliers, and other entities might be needed to ensure continuity of operations for essential services?q

4. For your COOP, summarize your disaster (cite your article), then list your HIM functions (found on PowerPoint) according to:

Critical, where operations must continue

Non-critical, job can be suspended, and staff may be redeployed to assist elsewhere in HIM or within facility

Critical, but may operate, but with a decreased workforce if clinical staff are redeployed to other areas

Finally, you must explain your decision-making process for your HIM function choices and make sure to review and include in your explanation any of the above bullet points made by CMS