American College of Health Care Administrators membership invited to gauge their risk in the event of a disaster

By Bob Reinert, Marketing, Content and PR Director, Readiness Associates

Among its most important benefits, the new strategic partnership between the American College of Health Care Administrators (ACHCA) and Readiness Associates (RA) gives ACHCA members the opportunity to assess their own vulnerabilities to natural and man-caused disasters.

RA, which delivers complete health, safety, preparedness, and business continuity services to Fortune 1000 companies and healthcare organizations, offers ACHCA members its Healthcare Facility Emergency Preparedness Self-Assessment, a free, online survey that can be completed in less than 15 minutes.

First introduced in March 2019, the RA self-assessment was recently streamlined to make it even quicker and easier to use while providing the same vital information to help ACHCA members determine just how prepared they are for catastrophic events.

“Our self-assessment provides busy healthcare administrators with a concise way to easily reflect on the comprehensive state of emergency preparedness of their facilities,” said Mike Boardman, Readiness Associates CEO. “Our tool provides compelling feedback that is geared to assist with CMS emergency preparedness rule compliance.  Our newest version, released in November 2019, is even more streamlined than before to save valuable time for users.”

Vern Jeffery, RA lead strategist, further explained the survey format.

“In each section of our self-assessment survey, we are asking for reflection on about a dozen or so carefully curated points,” Jeffery said. “Depending upon the facility, when these reflections are taken together, they should either provide a sense of reassurance or set off alarms where opportunities for improvement exist.”

Throughout the four-part self-assessment, participants are asked to rate statements from 1 to 5, or from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.”

"The Readiness Associates Healthcare Facility Emergency Preparedness Self- Assessment is a great starting point,” Jeffery said. “We are not saying that all that you need to do to prepare your healthcare facility to manage every emergency is to address the 49 points of our self-assessment survey. However, we think that anyone would be hard-pressed to devise a comprehensive, effective emergency preparedness program for a healthcare facility without including the points addressed in our self-assessment tool.”

Joey Hunter, director of Security and Emergency Planning at San Gorgonio Memorial Hospital in Banning, California, has taken the RA survey and found it quite useful.

“I have told several colleagues that if they have not had the chance to conduct a proper Hazard Vulnerability Assessment, for whatever reason, then the Readiness Associates survey is a very good place to start for learning the various areas that a healthcare facility must consider to be prepared for today’s emergencies,” Hunter said. “I think everything is right on point and this is a very good survey.”

In all, the Readiness Associates self-assessment survey asks respondents to rate those 49 statements over four sections about their facilities’ readiness in a variety of areas. Participation is voluntary, and the information provided will be kept strictly confidential. We encourage you to take the survey here.