Methodist Health System - Business
Continuity & IT Outage Preparedness

Methodist Health System partnered with Stone Risk Consulting to strengthen its enterprise-wide approach to business continuity and extended IT outage preparedness. Facing fragmented plans, inconsistent quality across facilities, and limited integration between clinical operations and IT recovery, Methodist needed a unified strategy to improve resilience while aligning with regulatory standards like those from The Joint Commission and CMS.

Over the course of a 14-week engagement, Stone Risk led a comprehensive continuity program assessment across governance, recovery planning, IT resilience, vendor risk, and infrastructure. The team facilitated deep-dive interviews with stakeholders from clinical, IT, and executive leadership to surface operational gaps and breakdowns during past incidents. Using SRC’s proprietary Long-Term IT Outage Assessment Tool, Methodist's resilience posture was scored across 10 domains to identify areas of strength and vulnerability.

Stone Risk prioritized high-risk clinical workflows - including medication administration, lab services, and admissions - and mapped manual downtime pathways to ensure continuity of care. Practical tools like supply kit requirements, job aids, and application tiering strategies were developed to support execution during outages. The result was Methodist’s first enterprise resilience scorecard, along with a clear three-year roadmap combining near-term improvements and long-term capability building.

This engagement not only delivered actionable procedures for frontline staff but also positioned Methodist to sustain improvements through structured governance, staff training, and scalable SOPs. The strengthened coordination between IT and clinical operations enabled faster, safer recovery from disruptions, setting a new bar for continuity across the organization.