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HIGHLIGHTS FROM PAST MEETINGS
SPEAKERS
Olivia Bruch, M.Sc.
Infectious Disease Emergency Coordinator San Francisco
Department of Public Health
San Francisco Pandemic Task Force, City Pandemic Flu Planning, and their “Pandemic Toolkit”
Regina Phelps
Read about Regina at: http://www.ems-solutionsinc.com/about_phelps.html
1. Bird flu what? Is it still an issue and if so how do we keep up the momentum?
2. New developments over the past few months and their impacts
· CDC mask recommendation
· News of CDC advocating Tamiflu – expected late this summer
· Community mitigation strategies
· Financial modeling
Barry Cardoza
“Evolving International Anti-Viral Programs”
Peter Ohtaki
Spoke about BENS: http://www.bens.org
Business Executives for National Security, a nationwide, non-partisan organization, is the primary channel through which senior business executives can help enhance the nation's security. BENS members use their business experience to drive our agenda, deliver our message to decision makers and make certain that the changes we propose are put into practice.
Dr. Michael
Greger
Spoke about his book:
http://www.birdflubook.com
Dr. Greger presented background information about diseases and information contained in his book. Please go to: http://www.birdflubook.com to read more about his well researched and scholarly approach to understanding the Avian Flu Pandemic.
Dr. Jim Rooney, VP Medical Affairs, Gilead Sciences
Physician in internal
medicine and infectious disease; involved in development of Tamiflu with Roche
and pandemic planning efforts. SLIDES
Topics of Discustion
1. Pandemic Insurance: Who has it? Does it exist?
2. Implementation of Y2K-Style Systems Moratorium
Discussion: Whether or not other
institutions would be implementing or consider a Y2K-style systems moratorium
during a pandemic event.
Description:
During a pandemic event, there could be a moratorium on hardware and software
(both applications and systems) changes without the approval of senior
management. During a pandemic, IT staff absenteeism would mirror that of the
general population. Staff that would be available would first provide for the
care and feed of production systems, but development work would be suspended
in order to reduce the IT workload and reduce risk. An additional benefit of
the moratorium might be that the many of the available systems staff are
knowledge about the business functions in the area's that they support and
could provide staffing alternatives for those business units with their
day-to-day work.
3. Pandemic Planning Policies: Who has them and what do they look like?
More Discussions:
Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council “Interagency Statement on Pandemic Planning”
Department of Homeland Security “Pandemic Influenza Impact on Communications Network Study”
Barry Cardoza began his presentation with the first document, describing its impact as “huge.”
The Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC) Agencies have just
published the "Interagency Statement on Pandemic Planning." For institutions that are
regulated by these agencies, pandemic "guidelines" are now effectively "regulations"
against which they will be audited. Compliance is mandatory.
It is probably just a matter of time before these new guidelines find their way into other
sets of guidelines, including NFPA 1600. And NFPA 1600 may well be the set of
standards used for the national Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Accreditation and
Certification program.
It was mentioned that the terminology used in this document, like NFPA 1600, does
cloud the distinction between Risk Analysis and Business Impact Analysis. Many
organizations define the Risk Analysis as being an analysis of many different types of
risk (Operational Risk, Information Security Risk, Physical Security Risk, Business
Continuity Risk, etc.). The BIA would be a subset of the Risk Analysis that addresses
risk to business continuity due to a crisis. This document and NFPA 1600 suggest that
the BIA is the “umbrella” under which all types of potential impact to a company would
be considered.
One of the more daunting aspects of the guidelines is that they also require institutions to
ensure that their vendors are also following the guidelines.
Barry has prepared an Excel-based gap analysis tool that will be available on both the
Pandemic Network and Business Recovery Managers Association (BRMA) web sites to
assist companies in comparing their current status to the new guidelines. He will also be
making an article he has written on the topic available to Pandemic Network as soon as it
is published in the BRMA Reporter newsletter.
The second document is the Department of Homeland Security “Pandemic Influenza
Impact on Communications Network Study.” This in-depth study involves research and
modeling that was used to estimate the viability of working from home when Internet
usage increases during a pandemic event.
Their estimate is that with a low/20% absenteeism rate, “the telecommuting strategy is
anticipated to be successful for the majority of commuters. With a medium/40%
absenteeism rate, “the telecommuting strategy is expected to be significantly impacted for
most telecommuters during the peak of the pandemic.” With an extremely high/90%
absenteeism rate, “the telecommuting strategy is expected to be unusable for the majority
of telecommuters during the peak of the pandemic.
However, the study also includes a great many recommended strategies to improve that
situation. The entire document will be made available on both the Pandemic Network
and BRMA web sites.
Considerable discussion followed. It was noted that the study did not address the
potential of wireless technologies, including the new WiMax technology that is being
introduced by Sprint/Nextel. It was asked whether it was likely that consumers would
embrace that new technology. Since it is said to be both more robust (wider ranges, etc.)
and less expensive than existing technologies, consumers would probably drive a move in
that direction.
There were questions about the practicality of working from home in different types of
companies. For financial institutions, security is a key factor in considering which
employees would be allowed to perform which functions from home. Karen Dye was
good enough to share the very successful Sun Microsystems experience with their work
from home program. In addition to the business continuity aspects, there are also
tremendous benefits in terms of real estate cost reduction (something like 1.7%
occupancy for every desk) and productivity benefits. (What was commute time is now
available work time.) It was mentioned that Visa also has a robust work from home
program.
Karen Dye from Sun was generous enough to provide a presentation she has done on Sun’s program,
which will be posted on the Pandemic Network web site. She has also provided this link
to the external web site at Sun that discusses the service.
http://www.sun.com/service/openwork/
It was also mentioned that there is a Telework Coalition and that their web site is
http://www.Telcoa.org
There was discussion regarding whether working at home can be disruptive to the family
culture. Karen expressed her opinion and experience that having a family member
working as home can actually be very beneficial to family structure.
It was asked whether the new CDC Tamiflu guidelines and/or the final after-action report
from the Treasury Pandemic Exercise had been published as yet. So far as people on the
call knew, they have not yet been published but are expected soon.
It was noted that a European drug company has said that it believes it has developed a
vaccine that would be effective for any Type A influenza virus. But, that has not been
confirmed.
The full text of the DHS “Pandemic Influenza Impact on Communications Network
Study” will be added to the Pandemic Network and BRMA web sites.