Disasters aren’t always the biggest threat to your practice; uncertainty often is. Many leaders assume they’ll know what to do when things go wrong. But without clarity on what’s critical to keep operations running, even minor disruptions can spiral.
That’s why successful practice owners consider a practice impact analysis (PIA) to be a foundational part of their practice continuity and disaster recovery (PCDR) strategy.
What is a PIA?
A PIA helps eliminate guesswork. It provides clarity to help practices understand what is critical to operations, how long they can afford to stay offline and how soon they can get back online.
A well-executed PIA goes beyond resolving IT issues; it offers a full picture of operations and empowers practice leaders to prioritize recovery efforts based on factors such as urgency, risk and cost. Without a PIA, practices tend to be reactive, leading to decisions that are misaligned with actual practice needs.
In short, a PIA positions you to recover faster with less disruption.
Key components of a PIA
A strong PIA helps you turn your PCDR strategy into something actionable. It aligns recovery priorities with what truly drives value, like essential operations, patient expectations and long-term stability.
Here’s a quick look at the core components that make a PIA resilient:
- Critical practice functions: You can’t protect your practice if you don’t know what keeps it operational. Every practice has certain critical functions that simply can’t go offline, such as patient support, payroll or order processing.
- Dependencies: To build a strong PCDR, you must understand how all your practice functions are interconnected. A practice impact analysis helps you map your dependencies, such as how your operations rely on certain people, applications or even third-party services. It ensures your recovery plan is based on real-world complexity, not just siloed systems.
- Impact assessment: A thorough impact analysis helps you determine the cost of downtime. It gives you the means to evaluate the potential consequences of disruption, such as revenue loss, legal penalties, patient dissatisfaction and reputation damage. It tells your leadership exactly what’s at stake and where failing to act could cost the most.
- Recovery objectives: When something goes down, two questions matter most: how fast can you recover and how much data can you afford to lose? That’s where recovery objectives come in. An RTO (Recovery Time Objective) defines the maximum acceptable downtime, while an RPO (Recovery Point Objective) defines the maximum acceptable data loss. By setting clear RTO and RPO targets, you can plan recovery more efficiently.
- Prioritization: While building your PCDR strategy, it’s important to understand that not everything is mission-critical. By prioritizing your recovery efforts, you can act with focus. Determine what needs immediate attention, what can wait and how you can effectively allocate practices so they’ll have the greatest impact.
Steps to conduct a PIA
You don’t need a complex playbook to protect your practice, and your PIA doesn’t have to be too technical. Here’s a simple way to get started.
Plan the PIA: Set a clear scope. Focus on one or two key departments and bring the right people to the table.
Gather data: Use simple tools like surveys or interviews to collect insights from the people doing the work. Ask them what they rely on and what would happen if those things failed.
Analyze findings: Review the data to understand how a disruption impacts RTO and RPO, and then set realistic recovery goals.
Document results: Summarize your findings in a simple report. You can use it as your go-to guide to plan your PCDR efforts.
Review and update: Review your PIA regularly whenever you add a new tool, change teams or grow the practice. Keep it relevant.
Plan smarter. Recover stronger.
A well-executed PIA gives you both insight and control. It lays the groundwork for a PCDR plan that keeps your practice up and running even when everything else is falling apart. But knowing where to start isn’t always easy.
That’s where we come in. Whether starting fresh or revisiting an old plan, we’ll help you build a PIA-driven PCDR plan tailored to your practice needs.
Schedule a free, no-pressure consultation today. No frills. Just clear, expert help.
