Unfortunately, crises happen to labs. These emergency situations might be fires, floods, earthquakes, or hurricanes, and they’ll put the people and the lab's work in danger. The good news is that relatively few labs suffer from these crises. The bad news is that they can occur with little warning, and unprepared labs can lose everything. A little crisis preparation can help your lab survive the crisis, recover quickly, and get back to work to deliver on your mission and purpose. While there are many things the lab can do to prepare for a crisis, here are five tips to help you ensure the safety and continued use of the lab's most important aspects.
Protect the people
The people and their knowledge are the lab's top priority. Combine aspects of crisis preparation with emergency preparedness to ensure everyone knows what to do if a crisis occurs, has what they need to address it, and knows how to contact each other to ensure everyone is okay. From a crisis-preparation perspective, ensure the staff contact list is up to date and accurate. Verify that the list includes emergency contacts for each person and is immediately available to anyone who needs it. Encourage lab staff to check in and take care of one another.
Protect critical samples
For some labs, their work is done on critical, unique, and irreplaceable samples. For the lab to recover after the disaster, these samples need to be protected and preserved. During crisis planning, the lab must ensure that the freezers have emergency power and backup liquid nitrogen available. The goal is to keep the samples preserved for a few to several days until the facility is operating again. In addition, it is helpful to have alternative locations to move critical samples to and to store aliquots off-site to minimize the risk of complete loss.
Protect unique animal strains
Similarly, to protect critical samples, some labs use unique animal strains for their technical work. These also need to be protected, so that when the crisis has passed, the lab can return to its work and continue the research. Samples of unique animal strains can be cryopreserved and treated like critical samples. Unique strains can also be shared with other labs at different locations to minimize the risk.
Protect data
Data and documents can be stored in the cloud and protected from disasters that strike the facility. Store data, protocols, inventories, documents, and standard operating procedures in the cloud to ensure that they can be accessed remotely and aren’t tied to local computers and storage media that can be destroyed during a crisis. If your organization doesn’t approve cloud storage, then regular off-site backups are the next best protection for the lab’s data.
Protect the space
Part of crisis planning involves actions to take to protect the physical space the lab uses. A common action is to ensure the lab has fire sprinklers that will rapidly prevent the growth and spread of fires and regularly test them. While small fires can be scary and cause significant damage, large fires can endanger staff and destroy the entire facility. Working sprinklers can minimize the damage and the risk of a crisis.
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