Risk Management & Contingency Planning
Disaster Preparedness
Risk management and contingency planning are complementary strategies. Risk management helps identify and prepare for potential risks while contingency planning provides a plan of action in the event such risks materialize.
Arguably, the most prevalent risk is from natural disasters, be they earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes or fires, and all businesses would do well to prepare for such eventualities. Such preparation is even more essential for a biomedical specimen storage facility that relies on uninterrupted power to protect the temperature-sensitive material being stored.
Drawing on her many years of experience conducting disaster preparedness audits and implementing contingency plans, Kate Grayson deployed a multi-faceted 24/365 plan to protect Steelgate’s facility. The following are a few highlights of Steelgate’s disaster preparedness plan:
Muli-unit generators providing primary and redundant back-up power supply to entire facility
All freezers NIST-certified/calibrated and subject to semi-annual preventive maintenance
All HVAC and Generator units subject to regularly-scheduled preventive maintenance
Standby/back-up active freezers run in parallel with primary storage freezers
Freezer-dedicated temperature and power alarms monitored 24/7/365
Twice-daily physical inspection of all freezer temperatures
Facility ambient temperature sensors
Fire, smoke and water sensors
Rubber flooring throughout specimen handling areas
Perimeter lightning diffusers
CCTV surveillance - interior and exterior
Motion-activated intruder alerts and audio sensors
24-hour central station monitoring for all alerts/alarms
Real-time daily data back-up to offsite/cloud storage
Weekly testing of generators
Annual disaster preparedness test including on-site participation of all critical vendors (Generator, H.V.A.C., IT and Freezer Maintenance)
Audited/validated Standard Operating Procedures based on GLP & GMP guidelines