Hospital – Business Resilience Experts

Integration of ISO standards and business continuity management under the umbrella of KTQ

Integration of ISO standards and business continuity management under the umbrella of KTQ

By Charlotte Ley|2021-09-27T10:49:45+02:00 24 September, 2021|Norms & Standards|

The "Cooperation for Transparency and Quality in Healthcare", (german: Kooperation für Transparenz und Qualität im Gesundheitswesen, KTQ), offers a voluntary certification system, according to which hospitals and other companies in the healthcare sector can be certified. Here, certification according to KTQ offers multiple advantages, as it is specifically tailored to hospitals. The standard is based on a PDCA approach with the patient at its center. This is also where the great strengths of certification according to KTQ lie: employees and patients are at the center and are core areas of KTQ. Both documentation and practice audits are conducted by medical, nursing and economic assessors. This strength also acts as a serious disadvantage for partial aspects of certification, because technical aspects remain in the background. For the inspection within the scope of the certification, about 1.5 hours are planned in the sample inspection plan for the following topics: Overview [...]

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Modern Hospital Alarm and Response Planning

Modern Hospital Alarm and Response Planning

By Charlotte Ley|2021-09-24T16:37:49+02:00 24 September, 2021|Interest, Norms & Standards|

Hospitals are specialized healthcare enterprises that operate either for profit or as a public legal entity. Crisis management in hospitals is also known as "hospital alert and response planning" (german: Krankenhaus Alarm- und Einsatzplanung KAEP), this has its roots in the need to increase treatment capacity. Examples of this are mass casualty incidents (MCI) or sick cases, where the hospital has to care for significantly more patients than in regular operation. Also described in the KAEP are measures to deal with functional failures, such as power outages. Hospital processes require personnel as well as resources embedded in an organization. Support from resources such as electricity, water, sewage, hygiene, IT, materials, medicines, etc. is required with the highest availability. Organizational, billing and documentation processes occur in parallel. The intersection between a hospital and a company from a business continuity management perspective is therefore very large. The Criticality Ordinance of [...]

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Crisis management in hospitals

Crisis management in hospitals

By Charlotte Ley|2021-08-18T09:42:13+02:00 13 August, 2021|Interest, News|

Incidents in hospitals are not uncommon. Statistics show that every day there is a cyberattack, every week a fire, every month an external threat (e.g., supply shortages), and every year a police incident that can present challenges to hospitals. The most recent example is the hacker attack on the University Hospital in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia. The actual extortion letter was directed at the university in Düsseldorf, however the hospital also suffered massive impact. Due to the encryption of patient data, normal operations were no longer possible. As a result, patients of the ambulance service were diverted. One person died in the process, resulting in a charge of involuntary manslaughter. Through contact between the police and the blackmailers, the danger to people was pointed out, whereupon a decryption code was issued. Nevertheless, repercussions are still present today and normal operations have not yet been fully restored. This example shows [...]

Ransomware in the hospital – only now a danger?!

Ransomware in the hospital – only now a danger?!

By Charlotte Ley|2021-08-18T09:46:21+02:00 13 August, 2021|News|

The attack on a hospital with ransomware can have far-reaching consequences for the healthcare sector. In addition to the loss or theft of data, the failure of IT systems is also a crisis situation for hospital business. The damage from this is not only delayed medical care, but also financially this event can develop into an existential threat. Especially when there is blackmail involving large sums of money. This makes it all the more surprising that it is only now that this danger posed by ransomware to hospitals is being publicly addressed and specifically warned against. The example of a hospital network in Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, which was affected by ransomware in 2019 and had to compensate for several days of IT outages, is representative of many more events of this kind, most of which have not been publicly discussed. It is estimated that about 64% of hospitals [...]