In anticipation of the fall influenza season, Pacific Blue Cross has taken a proactive approach to ensure all critical business processes continue during the pandemic so that we continue to provide essential services to our members. We have a comprehensive and flexible pandemic plan that escalates our level of preparedness and action as the pandemic increases in severity.
In addition to identifying critical business functions, it is also necessary to identify the individual employees who perform them, and develop contingencies in case they are not available to provide service.
We’re ready.
Our pandemic planning and response team has considered the potential impact to our operations and has already initialized key elements of the plan. To date we have:
- Identified critical business functions and anticipated our ability to provide service in the event of pandemic.
- Implemented a program of cross-training employees to back up critical business functions
- Planned the logistics of implementing alternate work arrangements that enable employees working from home.
- Identified critical suppliers and discussed necessary actions for the continuity of critical business functions during a pandemic.
Since a pandemic may impact the health of employees and their families, we have policies and procedures in place to support their well being while ensuring critical business functions can continue.
We have taken measures to minimize the risk of the disease spreading within our organization by:
- Reviewing our Human Resource policies on sick leave and other absences, in addition to establishing policies on hygiene, social distancing and travel.
- Initiating a comprehensive communication strategy to keep employees, clients, advisors and members informed about our pandemic plan and preventive strategies to protect the spread of illness.
We’ll continue to provide more information as the situation changes.