INFRASTRUCTURE RESILIENCE
Ensuring business continuity after a ‘natural disaster’
Jordan Bartlett, a Facility & Seismic Resilience consultant at Proactive Design in Australia, considers how those responsible for keeping plant and equipment safe and secure in healthcare facilities need – where their region is at risk of such occurrences – to prepare a Business Continuity Plan to cater for natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, with a particular focus on experience in Australia and New Zealand.
Earthquakes are natural hazards that are defined as a ‘disaster’ when the built environment fails. The Australian and New Zealand building codes have resilience measures (standards) for these events, although they are often misunderstood, overlooked, or discounted through inaction or avoidance. In new construction and upgrade of facilities, there is strong reliance upon the construction industry to make resilience decisions without critical review by resilience specialists or specific direction from facility owners, operators, or the end-client. The National Construction Code of Australia requires ‘holistic design’ to meet its many parts, but what happens when constant change results in vulnerabilities in our systems, and, worse – are the perceived ‘minimum standards’ adequate or holistically met? Is there capacity for post-disaster function built into our medical facilities? Who is measuring/ testing these resilience measures, and where does business continuity influence facility design? This paper is generally focused on
the Australian experience, although the New Zealand experience for earthquake resilience is still in need of significant advancement. In this article I attempt to address these shortfalls, and hopefully disrupt the comfort of facility stakeholders (Yes, you, the reader) before medical facilities are shaken and stirred.
Critical infrastructure Of the many lifelines of any society, medical facilities are critical infrastructure, which maintain business-as-usual (BAU), and occasionally post-disaster, functions. During BAU, these facilities provide daily, life-sustaining, critical services to the most vulnerable in our community, as well as emergency/accident support when needed. Notably, it is post-disaster that medical facilities become even more critical during the Response phase, with life-saving services, and are essential to Recovery, with the re-establishment of life-sustaining
A seriously damaged residential building after the February 2023 Turkish earthquake.
services and repairing the injured. Markedly, we’ve spent (and continue
to spend) a pretty coin on them through a great deal of work: they had better be ‘up-to-code’ and resilient. A large team of professionals designed these facilities in accordance with the Australian Health Facility Guidelines, and the relevant building code as they understood them. The structural engineers designed the structure for the specific earthquake design event, but are we sure that the essential architectural and building service elements had adequate treatment to remain serviceable? Can the hospital or other healthcare facility operate as an ‘island’? – and, if so – for how long? Across the corporate and government
world, we embed Business Continuity into our processes, IT, equipment purchasing, consumables, supplier selection, and the training of people. A significant part of BC planning for medical facilities is about ensuring a resilient facility and work environment, i.e. remaining fit for purpose, especially when complex services require specialised equipment. Operational shortfalls may see an organisation require an improved facility and build a new, or upgrade or acquire an existing, facility. For your consideration: Does your
organisation or trusted client provide its business continuity needs as part of the property search or design and construction brief? These are complex ‘fit-for-purpose’, expensive buildings with specialised systems: is relocating post-disaster an easy option, or even possible? Also, earthquakes can affect a vast area. Resilience to stay in place is highly desirable. Nevertheless, earthquake is hardly ever considered in the Business Continuity plan, let alone the required system resilience delivered well in the built environment.
The Resilience Challenge We have a disconnected system of practice: 1 Business continuity plans (BCP) of medical practices without earthquake (EQ) considerations;
2 Medical facilities designed for business- as-usual operation without BCP considerations;
3 Expert consultants delivering perceived minimum requirements of the relevant building codes (generally without systems resilience to EQ). This results in an active medical facility that is vulnerable to earthquake, and incapable of providing essential services during the Response or Recovery stages of a disaster.
August 2024 Health Estate Journal 37
AdobeStock / Hasan
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