Enterprise Resiliency
As health systems become more efficient through AI and digital transformation, they also become more vulnerable.
Through our Blackout Blueprint framework, we help health systems achieve enterprise resiliency and safeguard patient care by integrating business continuity, disaster recovery, and incident response into a single, unified methodology.
The imperative for enterprise resiliency in healthcare
The healthcare industry is adopting technology at an unprecedented pace to enable safe patient care at scale. Yet this digital dependency creates the potential for paralyzed operations if systems go down.
- The inevitability of failure: On a long enough timeline, the probability of technology failure approaches 100%. Preparation is not optional; it is a foundational requirement for enterprise resilience—it's required to protect clinical care, operations, financial performance, and reputation.
- Operational fragility: Unprepared organizations face revenue loss, surging costs, and eroded productivity. Without a plan, the ability to capture charges and maintain billing cycles stop as soon as core systems become unavailable.
- Ransomware impact: Recent catastrophic events have sidelined large health systems for over a month, proving that traditional recovery strategies may not be sufficient.
The Blackout Blueprint solution
Our Blackout Blueprint creates a system of total visibility. We move beyond IT-centric recovery to identify the critical interdependencies between clinical workflows and technical infrastructure. By translating complex processes into actionable playbooks, we help staff identify gaps, prepare, and build the muscle memory required to maintain uninterrupted patient care during a crisis.
- Business continuity: We help hospitals prepare, test, and sustain operations with step-by-step processes for all departments. These proactive methods allow essential functions to continue during a total blackout, avoiding the massive costs of prolonged downtime.
- Disaster recovery: We equip every department with proven workflows and redundant response plans to restore data and applications when core IT systems fail. By running real-world simulations to test for readiness and system redundancy, we streamline crisis response and reduce errors, ensuring critical systems remain available or are restored with minimal disruption.
- Incident response: We partner with leadership to demonstrate preparedness with a documented approach, protecting patient safety, ensuring compliance, and building institutional trust. Through comprehensive communication plans and defined escalation paths, we help safeguard your reputation and long-term resilience.
Many executives believe that a robust IT backup is enough to ensure resiliency. In reality, the toughest challenges are organizational, not technical; you need a blueprint for how people work when the screens go dark. ”
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the financial impact of digital infrastructure downtime in healthcare?
Downtime halts revenue cycles and charge-capture opportunities immediately, contributing to the $20.8 billion total cost of ransomware attacks on U.S. healthcare in 2024. Securing financial stability requires a proven plan to sustain billing and payroll systems during an outage.
How do organizations meet compliance requirements during a blackout?
Clients that use our framework maintain compliance through Blackout Blueprints that include vendor backup mapping, routine failover testing, and defined escalation paths. These strategies ensure that essential operations continue and regulatory burdens are met even when systems are offline.
How can a healthcare organization assess its readiness for a system blackout?
Readiness should be confirmed through regular, realistic tabletop scenarios and failover testing that demonstrate staff can maintain clinical workflows without technical assistance. Chartis has helped over 20 clients evaluate and improve their risk postures by identifying critical interdependencies and testing the bridge between a 24-hour operational safety window and a multi-week technical recovery period.
Prioritizing resilience: Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta takes business continuity enterprise-wide
Read how Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta built enterprise-wide resilience to withstand disruption and safeguard care.
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