Inborn errors of metabolism refuse to stay-at-home: Experiences of a state-wide biochemical genetics service during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AIM: The New South Wales (NSW) biochemical genetics (BG) service in Australia developed business continuity plans (BCPs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure the essential service remained operational. This article aims to discuss the effects of the COVID-19 BCPs on the NSW BG service and patient care. METHODS: BCPs were developed that included charting of NSW BG service workflow and services against staff resources and clinical impact on patients. The effect of the BCPs was analysed quantitatively by reviewing key performance indicators (result turnaround time, frequency and severity of clinical incidents and laboratory nonconformities) and qualitatively from staff feedback generated by a BG laboratory-wide survey. RESULTS: Alternative BCPs were implemented during the pre-defined period March 2020 to November 2021 (inclusive), to reflect changes in COVID-19 community transmission, vaccination rates; and health orders. Operation of our essential pathology service was maintained, with no significant difference observed in key performance indicators when compared to pre-COVID. During the pre-defined period of the COVID-19 pandemic, staff reported increased levels of both work- and out-of-work-related stress. CONCLUSION: The successful continuation of the BG service, with no statistically significant impact on patient care and delivery of essential services, can be attributed to strategic planning and timely implementation of these BCPs. In conjunction with the resilient and robust attitude of the staff during this ever-changing situation, this experience has served as an invaluable tool for future disaster management planning.

Designing Business Continuity Plan for It Organizations: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis

With the recent pandemic due to COVID-19 and several other uncertain events (due to human error or natural disaster), designing and implementation of Business Continuity Plan (BCP) has become a vital part of any organization. The organizations must prepare in advance and identify all possible uncertain events which may cause hindrance in their services. They must also access the consequences due to such events, which helps them devise such a plan that their operations do not pause even in such a disaster. This research explores the possibilities and finds a standard set of steps that must be taken care of while designing, testing, and implementing BCP. In this research paper, a systematic literature review has been performed on a previous research paper in the area of Business Continuity Plan to explore various options that an organization may adopt during a disaster. The studies were of moderate quality and had a low chance of being skewed by publishing prejudice. Subgroup analyses were not possible due to the heterogeneity of outcome tests, follow-up durations, and research forms. The new research should be used to help create and evaluate executive training strategies that facilitate long-term adaptive coping with PSP and reduce PT-SIs. The aim of this systematic review and metanalysis is to assess PSP coping effects over time. The number of patients born with congenital heart disease need to be monitored for the rest of their lives. Discontinuity of treatment, on the other hand, is a well-known issue that tends to be worsening at the time of transition to adulthood.

Reopening During the Unprecedented: The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Community Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic Response. Part 2: E orts to E ectively Ramp Up Core Facility Activities

Shared research resources, also known as core facilities, serve a crucial role in supporting research, training, and other needs for their respective institutions. In response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, all but the most critical laboratory research was halted in many institutions around the world. The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities conducted 2 surveys to understand and document institutional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from core facility perspectives. The first survey was focused on initial pandemic response and efforts to sustainably ramp down core facility operations. The second survey, which is the subject of this study, focused on understanding the approaches taken to ramp up core facility operations after these ramp-down procedures. The survey results revealed that many cores remained active during the ramp-down, performing essential COVID-19 research, and had a more coordinated institutional response for ramping up research as a whole. The lessons gained from this survey will be indexed to serve as a resource for the core facility community to understand, plan, and mitigate risk and disruptions in the event of future disasters. Copyright © 2021, Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities. All rights reserved.

Layered business continuity and disaster recovery model

Purpose>The purpose of this study is to address the problem of a plethora of potential plans related to business continuity and disaster recovery.Design/methodology/approach>A review of the relevant academic articles, standards and guidelines related to business continuity and disaster recovery was conducted, and the discussed plans include critical information infrastructure plans, disaster recovery plans, information system contingency plans, business continuity plans and continuity of operations plans.Findings>The content of each plan is explained. A layered business continuity and disaster recovery model is proposed, which consolidates all plans in a coherent manner.Originality/value>Relationships, similarities and differences among each pair of plans are discussed, and the longitudinal validity and applicability of plans are presented.

Simulation of Energy Management Considering Remote Work of Office Buildings With Storage Batteries in the Case of Disaster

Nowadays, large-scale natural disasters have frequently occurred at many places. To deal with the interruption of electricity supply due to natural disasters, many companies require to enhance resilience of office buildings. Introducing remote work is one of the ways to control their power demand. However, the existing disaster energy simulation models have not considered in detail how building users use electricity in the case of a grid outage, so the introduction of remote work could not be considered. This study proposes a model in which business damage costs are incurred according to the reduction in the number of employees in the office. In the proposed model, the power demand is broken down by the priority of working in the office. Using the cost model, we construct the simulation method that minimizes the cost of business damage in the case of a disaster by moving to remote work. We apply operational data to our simulation model assuming offices before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and conduct simulations of business continuity for 72 hours in the case of a sudden grid outage. From the results, it was found that the cost of business damage can be suppressed when remote work is regularly introduced during COVID-19. © 2022 IEEJ-IAS.

Reopening During the Unprecedented: The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities Community Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic Response. Part 2: Efforts to Effectively Ramp Up Core Facility Activities.

Shared research resources, also known as core facilities, serve a crucial role in supporting research, training, and other needs for their respective institutions. In response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, all but the most critical laboratory research was halted in many institutions around the world. The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities conducted 2 surveys to understand and document institutional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic from core facility perspectives. The first survey was focused on initial pandemic response and efforts to sustainably ramp down core facility operations. The second survey, which is the subject of this study, focused on understanding the approaches taken to ramp up core facility operations after these ramp-down procedures. The survey results revealed that many cores remained active during the ramp-down, performing essential COVID-19 research, and had a more coordinated institutional response for ramping up research as a whole. The lessons gained from this survey will be indexed to serve as a resource for the core facility community to understand, plan, and mitigate risk and disruptions in the event of future disasters.

Establishment of a Rapid Response, 100-Bedded COVID-19 Hospital With General Wards and Intensive Care Unit Within 35 Days in North Karnataka, India: Report From the Field.

In the state of Karnataka, India, the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was diagnosed on March 9, 2020. As stated by the WHO, around 15% of COVID-19 patients require treatment in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Keeping this in mind, along with the increase in COVID-19 patients in Karnataka, it was predicted that the prevailing general wards and ICUs would be overburdened with the added non-COVID-19 diseases and infirmities. Hence, it was decided to set up a separate infrastructure to reduce the chances of transmission among the patients within the hospital. Thus, the board at SDM College of Medical Sciences & Hospital, Dharwad, Karnataka, took the responsibility to establish a fully equipped 100-bedded hospital in its premise as part of the national and state services to combat the outbreak. The aim of the study was to establish an isolated, fully functional hospital, equipped with all necessary diagnostic and critical care facilities to treat patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in North Karnataka, India.

Distance Learning and Business Continuity Plan in Post-Covid-19 Era at Umm Al-Qura University

The Corona pandemic has changed the work of all educational institutions all over the world and pushed these institutions to take the distance learning approach as a solution to face this pandemic Umm Al-Qura University was one of the first educational institutions that responded to the risks and prepared a business continuity plan to face the threats of the Corona pandemic. In this context, this paper aimed to prepare a proposed business continuity plan for the post-Corona era at Umm Al-Qura University considering the capabilities and services analysis for the deanship of e learning and distance education at Umm Al-Qura University. In addition, the special decisions that taken by stakeholders about students return to campus. As well as all possibilities that may occur to both the student and the faculty member whether feeling the symptoms of Covid19 inside the university or outside it, and what are the procedures taken to suit each of these cases in order to keep the learning community and the outside society safe.

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of occupational health services in a tertiary hospital in Singapore.

With coronavirus disease 2019 declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, occupational health services in a tertiary hospital in Singapore stepped up via a three-pronged approach, namely, protection of individual staff, protection of staff workforce, and prevention of nosocomial spread so as to support business continuity plans. Despite the multiple new challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital's occupational health services were able to adapt and keep all employees and patients safe with strong support from senior management and close collaboration with various departments.

Ecosystem-centric business continuity planning (eco-centric BCP): A post COVID19 new normal.

This article views the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity leading to a significant reduction in pollution levels, clean waters in rivers, improved visibility, and other tangible benefit to humanity and the environment. In Post-COVID scenario, to restore the margins and regain the lost production, industries are likely to increase their production leading to a quantum jump in the pollution levels. Having precedence of such a scenario in 2008-09, this article looks at what are the possible avenues to engage the city government and business houses through an a new normal ECO-BCP concept for long term sustainability. All economic stimulus needs to be tied down with the stringent reduction in the emission norms. The Ten Principles for the Eco-centric BCP guide the reopening of MSMEs after lockdown period called to check the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Eco-centric BCP model will help the MSMEs to adopt the new-normal business strategies to align with the country-specific commitments to SDGs, SFDRR and Paris declaration.