SITUATION & NEED:
Coordinated Consulting Services (CCS) was hired in April 2024 by CCHHS to develop this Coconino County Health and Human Services Continuity of Operations Plan & Business Impact Analysis. The scope of the project was to develop a COOP Plan that serves as an operational guide should an incident or emergency event disrupt the ability of CCHHS to perform its essential functions. CCHHS asked that the plan include operational descriptions for each of the four phases of COOP and address specific key areas. Additionally, the Plan was also to be aligned with current industry standards such as the FEMA Continuity Guidance Circular, February 2018.
SOLUTION:
CCHHS and CCS established a core planning team which included CCS staff members, the Outbreak Response Division Manager, and PHEP planner staff. CCS began the project by conducting an initial assessment of CCHHS leadership, divisions, and programs to establish the Functional Areas. The Functional Areas included all 10 CCHHS divisions and the Director’s Office (11 total Functional Area/Division). This was a critical step in ensuring the correct teams and personnel could be identified as small working groups during data collection.
CCS provided a COOP Project Overview and Training for the CCHHS Leadership Team on April 10, 2024. The Leadership Team received a summary of the COOP project, a training on COOP planning and the Business Impact Analysis process, and a summary of project next steps.
CCS developed a unique data collection strategy that included two parts: identifying, describing, and scoring the CCHHS Functional Area/Division essential functions followed by collecting the dependencies that support those essential functions. CCS staff traveled to Flagstaff in late April 2024 to conduct the first set of in-person interviews. CCS staff met with each Functional Area/Division and worked with the key division staff in identifying, describing, and scoring the essential functions. Once all CCHHS essential functions were identified and scored, CCS conducted an analysis on the top 25% of scored functions, scored functions highest to lowest, and other key analyses.
For the second data collection, CCS worked with the core planning team to develop a survey using Survey Monkey to collect dependencies that support essential functions from each of the 11 Functional Areas/Divisions. CCS met with the division staff and completed some of the functions via a virtual meeting; any remaining survey responses were collected by division staff offline.
After data collection, CCS then developed the COOP base plan. The COOP base plan was written in consultation with the core planning team. The COOP base plan references a series of workbooks which included each Functional Area/Division business impact analysis and dependency summary information. CCS also conducted additional analyses by aggregating data, producing graphs, and summarizing key data components. These resulting workbooks were also included by reference to the base plan.
In September 2024, CCS conducted a plan socialization presentation to the CCHHS Leadership Team. This presentation included an overview of the base plan, workbooks, and how to access and interpret the key information.
OUTCOME:
The plan was adopted and/or updated as signed in the initial pages. CCHHS will consider this base plan and its workbooks in identifying future priorities such as conducting ongoing and routine organizational training, conducting a tabletop exercise, and practicing how COOP integrates in emergency operations planning. CCHHS can utilize this plan to ensure continuance of essential public health services during and after a significant disruption or emergency. The COOP and BIA helps to ensure that CCHHS can recover from a crisis while continuing to meet the health needs of the community.
