Pandemic and Health Emergency Planning Flashcards
6 cards from real DRI practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 Pandemic and Health Emergency Planning flashcards as text
What distinguishes pandemic planning from other business continuity scenarios?
Answer: Pandemics are unique because they simultaneously affect the workforce, supply chain, customers, and supporting infrastructure across a geographically widespread area for an extended duration
Pandemics are unique continuity challenges because they simultaneously affect the workforce (illness and absenteeism), supply chains, customers, and supporting infrastructure across wide geographies and for extended periods—unlike most disasters that are localized and time-limited.
What is 'surge capacity' planning in the context of health emergency business continuity?
Answer: The pre-planned ability to rapidly scale up operations, staffing, or services in response to sudden demand increases during a health emergency
Surge capacity planning addresses the organization's ability to rapidly scale up specific capabilities—particularly critical services, essential personnel pools, and supply reserves—to meet sudden demand increases or compensate for resource losses during a health emergency.
Which factor is MOST critical in pandemic workforce continuity planning?
Answer: Identifying mission-critical roles and ensuring sufficient depth of cross-trained backup personnel for each
Identifying mission-critical roles and ensuring multiple cross-trained personnel can perform each role is the most critical workforce continuity factor—it addresses the fundamental pandemic risk that key personnel may be simultaneously unavailable due to illness or caregiving responsibilities.
What is a 'social distancing' protocol in workplace pandemic planning and what business continuity impacts must it address?
Answer: Physical distancing measures that reduce transmission risk but may reduce facility occupancy, require workstation reconfiguration, and necessitate remote work accommodations
Social distancing protocols maintain physical separation between individuals to reduce transmission, but create significant operational impacts: reduced facility occupancy capacity, workstation reconfiguration, shift arrangements to reduce co-occupancy, and substantial expansion of remote work requirements.
Why is supply chain pandemic planning particularly challenging compared to other supply chain disruptions?
Answer: Simultaneous global impact means that alternative suppliers, geographies, and logistics providers are all affected at the same time
The simultaneous global impact of pandemics means that backup suppliers, alternative geographies, and substitute logistics providers are all experiencing the same conditions—the geographic and supplier diversification strategies that address most supply chain disruptions may be ineffective.
What is 'pandemic phase planning' and why does it require BC plans to be tiered?
Answer: Aligning continuity responses to the WHO or national health authority pandemic phase declarations, with increasingly aggressive measures as the phase escalates
Pandemic phase planning aligns BC activation triggers and response measures to official pandemic phase declarations, enabling the organization to implement progressively more aggressive measures proportionate to actual conditions rather than activating the most extreme responses prematurely.