Foreword by the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) - Business Continuity and HIPAA Business Continuity Management in the Health Care Environment [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Foreword by the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII)

Belinda Wilson, CBCP

In today's business environment, change is the norm. The path to your business goals is seldom marked, and never direct. Success in this world demands agility and resilience, and relies on its ability to easily adapt and be flexible in a world of uncertain times. An adaptive infrastructure that tightens integration and synchronization between IT resources and business processes while delivering a level of interoperability supports the requirements for a new infrastructure ecosystem. An adaptive infrastructure also delivers virtualized resources as services in response to business process requirements. It scales or redeploys resources quickly and efficiently as the business requires, in a single department or across the entire enterprise. To adapt effectively to change in the business environment, the infrastructure itself must deliver services continuously, secure against attack and threat.

But continuous, secure operations are more than a step toward somewhere else: they are a destination of their own. It is time to begin the journey toward an infrastructure that can serve as a dependable foundation for your business today, and the engine of quick, smooth adaptation to business requirements in an unpredictable future.

Businesses build cultures of business continuity by planning, then overcoming everyday threats and obstacles, until continuity is no longer optional but rather is built into the corporate culture. Never complete, the process cycles through analysis, building, integration, management and evolution. With every turn, your business becomes more secure, efficient and agile in its response to both challenge and opportunity.

The continuity and security of your business are not isolated destinations. Even your first steps will bring you toward a broader, more integrated operational vision. And, efficiencies will only improve as employees move together toward common objectives. As you go, the path will get easier. Protecting and organizing information systems helps you pick up speed-moving ahead with new sophistication and efficiency. Your systems will become not just safer, but easier to use and manage for employees, partners and customers.

No destination is final, but the journey toward continuous operations brings its own practical, measurable rewards along the way. With every step, your business grows more resilient, more agile and better prepared to take advantage of the next business change.

Newer and reinforced regulation is changing the world of business as we know it. With more of a focus on corporate governance and compliance, business continuity practices and program management have become in most cases, the focus of compliance.

As more healthcare organizations look to go paperless, recovery and continuity become even more difficult to achieve. Data storage banks are growing at an all time high and expected to continue to grow as other regulation such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II Accord are rolled out into organizations. Penalties in not complying with regulation may have a higher degree of financial and operational impact to the organization than previous impacts regarding revenue loss and lost production.

This book helps healthcare professionals crystallize some of the ways companies can comply with HIPAA regulation. The structured approach is easy to follow and conforms to the best practices and standards as presented by Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII).

Belinda Wilson, CBCP

Executive Director, Hewlett-Packard, Business Continuity Services

Vice-Chairperson, Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII)

DRI International (DRII) was first formed in 1988 as the Disaster Recovery Institute in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. A group of professionals from the industry and from Washington University in St. Louis forecasted the need for comprehensive education in business continuity. Alliances with academia helped shape early research and curriculum development.

The group also understood that individual certification and establishing a common body of knowledge (standards) could only enhance industry professionalism. As a result, the new non-profit organization established its goals to:

promote a base of common knowledge for the business continuityplanning/disaster recovery industry through education, assistance, andpublication of the standard resource base; certify qualified individuals in the discipline; and promote the credibility and professionalism of certified individuals. DRII sets standards that provide the minimum acceptable level of measurable knowledge, thus providing a baseline for levels of knowledge and capabilities.

Accordingly, in 1997, DRII, together with the Business Continuity Institute (BCI), published the Professional Practices for Business Continuity Planners as the industry's international standard. For more information about DRII, please visit.

http://www.drii.org