Disasters are all around us. As a home health or home care agency, you need to be prepared! Nothing is worse than going to your office and seeing the roof of the building you’re in collapse. Water pouring in all over your records, forms, supplies, or more.
The economic and operational losses for an unprepared disaster can be overwhelming. An hour or day of downtime could cost an agency as much as $8,000 per day, or up to $74,000 by the month. Some of the larger agencies can lose up to $700,000 in a year, according to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness (DRP) Council.
Two-thirds of agency owners surveyed said they lost more than $20,000 per day when out of business because of a city or statewide disaster because they were not prepared. Can you afford this type of loss?
As a home health or homecare agency administrator, manager, or owner you are required to have an Emergency Preparedness Plan and to train your staff 2 times a year. Once at orientation and then during the agency’s inservice.
Your staff and clients need to know and understand what to do if they have a personal disaster or if the agency, city, or state has a disaster. Staff needs to be trained during orientation and during one of your agency’s inservices. Place information on disasters and emergencies in your client’s admission packet to give to them.
To Your Success,
Sharron
