Episode Summary:
This week, Shane interviews James Mitchell- the Director of Organizational Resilience at the 724-bed Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, TX. His responsibilities encompass Emergency Management, Business Continuity and Enterprise Risk.
The last few months he has been heavily involved with a historic pandemic response at Texas Children’s which involved a 140+ day activation of their incident command system. And he graciously sat down with me so we could talk about how he approaches his program, the unique challenges healthcare presents to business continuity, and how he ensures his executive team is always aware and engaged.
Key Points:
0:28min- James’ background
3:06min- How he got into healthcare Business Continuity
6:16min- Why this particular hospital started their program
8:00min- Overview of the program he’s created
10:43min- Approaching the BIA development through the lens of what's important during normal times vs hurricane events
12:22min- The approach he takes to building BC plans in a healthcare
15:30min- Using what he describes as an “internal consulting” model to BC
17:20min- How to you keep plans fresh when time amongst staff is hard to get
19:07min- How the team approaches the testing of their plans
20:03min- Engaging leadership; How the structure of the program helps
21:45min- Participation increases due to a large scale hurricane exercise
22:47min- Is he lucky? Or is the secret sauce quality instead of quantity when executives are involved.
26:28min- The role of his BC program in non-traditional activities like COVID
31:10min- How did the BC planning actually get used during COVID
34:12min- Dealing with Hurricanes and COVID at the same time
37:00min- Tools James has implemented to help his program (Mass Notification, etc.)
Guest Bio:
James Mitchell has served at Texas Children’s Hospital for nearly five years and is the Director of Organizational Resilience. His responsibilities encompass Emergency Management, Business Continuity and Enterprise Risk.
The last few months he has been heavily involved with a historic pandemic response at Texas Children’s which involved a 140+ day activation of their incident command system as well as a large scale response to some of the worst regional flooding ever to occur in the United States caused by Hurricane Harvey.
Prior to 2020, he led his team and organization in increasingly complex and more realistic exercises culminating in the development and execution of a series of large scale, multi-agency active shooter and mass casualty exercises that can be seen in the videos linked below.
Prior to Texas Children’s, James held roles at global companies such as BP (energy) and Invesco (investments) focused on development and integration of new teams and processes with responsibility for IT Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management and Business Continuity.
He loves the work he does and greatly respects all of those just starting out in this profession as well as those who have made it to the end and have such remarkable knowledge and insight to share.
Links:
Some exercises which James and the team developed:
EP22: Gamifying Business Continuity | James MacDonnell
EP21:Reaching the Next Generation of Planners | Burley & Navarro
EP20: Developing Your Skills Through Service | Michael Crooymans
EP19: Dealing with the New Normal During a Crisis (Part 1) | Cyril Moulin-Fournier
EP18: The Bus is Coming! What do we do? | David Lindstedt Mark Armour James Green
EP17: Building My Own Online BIA App | Michelle Marx
Redux- EP04: Integrating Continuous Improvement into BCM Programs | John Hill
Redux- EP01: Creating BCM Engagement | Scott Baldwin
EP16: Improving Your Skills Through Great Books | Erick Anez
EP15: Building Your Personal Brand in BC | Luke Bird
EP14: Embedding Your BC Program Throughout the Business | Jamie Goodloe
EP13: Pre-planning is Key with Restoration Services | Ricky Wells
EP12: Can Artificial Intelligence and Business Continuity Mix? | Daniel Breston
EP11: Is Business Continuity at a Crossroads? | James Green
EP10: Can You Build Business Continuity Plans in a Productivity App? | Chris Rivera
EP09: Adopting Adaptive Business Continuity | José M. Garay
Ep.08: Why Were Some in Business Continuity Sidelined During COVID? | Michael Herrera
Ep. 06- Driving BC from the top during COVID | Sheeba Philip
Ep. 05- Building a WFH Strategy in 1 Day | Anitha Abraham
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