For 13 days, a hospital patient’s chart auto-populated the same reassuring phrase, “moves all extremities,” while nursing notes said otherwise. The AI-generated template filled in the wrong assessment, and clinicians missed the discrepancy. By the time the care team caught the error, the patient had permanent paralysis.
This chilling reminder that a small mistake can turn a standard workflow into a clinical crisis was shared in a HUB International webinar with healthcare and risk management experts.
When it comes to risks in 2026, what’s true in large health systems is true in small practices where providers move fast, document quickly and wear many hats. Four webinar presenters offer insights and strategies to help you prepare your organization in 2026 for this kind of disruption and more, before it strikes.
Click here to watch the webinar on demand
Latest Trends in Healthcare Crisis Management for Small Practices
In the past, business crisis readiness meant keeping an emergency plan on a shelf. Today, where crises are the norm, crisis readiness means building resilience into your everyday processes. Small, proactive decisions can prevent disruptions from escalating into disasters. With awareness, preparation, clear communication and the appropriate safeguards in place, small healthcare businesses can be prepared for anything.
“We need to create a culture of resiliency where preparation, communication, and quick coordination become second nature to the organization and its people,” says Peter Reilly, North American Healthcare Practice Leader, HUB International.
Why Crisis Readiness is Critical for Small Outpatient Clinics in 2026
Today, allied health professionals who own independent practices, therapy clinics and outpatient centers are delivering more care than ever, while also absorbing the same risks as large health systems.
These include:
- Rising patient acuity
- Increasing documentation responsibilities
- Frequent cyberattacks
- Staff burnout and turnover
- Weather risks
- AI risks
“Being crisis-ready isn’t just about reacting when something goes wrong or clouds appear on the horizon. It’s about embedding a culture of resiliency into everyday operations so readiness becomes part of the organization itself,” says Reilly.
Preparing Your Small Healthcare Practice for Extreme Weather Events
Extreme weather is becoming more common in 2026, even in inland areas. For example, when Hurricane Helene hit the Southeast in 2024, Tampa General Hospital remained fully operational behind a removable storm barrier designed to withstand a nine-foot storm surge. Meanwhile, a Tennessee hospital hundreds of miles inland wasn’t prepared for severe flooding and became a total loss in that same storm.
Small clinics aren’t immune to weather disasters, and the stakes can be even higher. They tend to go without backup units, surge staffing or redundant systems. A single disruption can halt operations entirely.
Actionable step: Identify the top environmental risks in your area and confirm how your practice would continue care if your building was inaccessible for 24–72 hours. Keep a simple emergency contact sheet for staff, vendors and your insurer.
Click here to learn more about business interruption insurance.
Managing Financial and Operational Risks in Small Healthcare Practices
Extreme weather turned into a supply shortage after Hurricane Helene flooded western North Carolina. Every small IV therapy clinic now knows firsthand how supply-chain fragility affects solo and small-group practices. When a North Carolina facility producing up to 60% of the nation’s IV fluids flooded in 2024, the ripple effects reached every corner of healthcare, including outpatient and rehab clinics.
Small practices don’t have the same buffer as large systems. A single upstream disruption can quickly affect care, scheduling and revenue.
Cybersecurity and PHI Data Risks for Small Healthcare Clinics
Cyberattacks in large health systems are the ones that make the news, but cyberattacks can hit small practices harder than large healthcare businesses. Over a third of all cyberhacks hit organizations with 250 or fewer employees. “Cyber readiness is no longer just an IT project — it’s a governance challenge and a responsibility across the organization,” says Chrystina Howard, ERM Leader, Complex Risk Practice at HUB International.
Outpatient practices often have lighter security controls, making them an easy target. They can also be more vulnerable by sharing vendors, cloud storage or billing systems with other companies.
Losing customer PHI in a cyberattack is costly in the short term, with catastrophic downtime, and in the long term with possible lawsuits.
Actionable step: Audit who has access to your EHR, scheduling system and billing platforms to revoke any unnecessary accounts. Use strong passwords, two-factor authentication and ensure you have a simple downtime protocol printed and accessible in case systems go offline.
Click here to learn more about cybersecurity for your practice.
How AI and Automation Can Impact Documentation and Patient Safety
While AI can benefit documentation and workforce optimization, the paralysis case above shows how quickly automated tools can cause clinical errors. “AI models are trained on specific populations. If it’s not right for your environment, it may fail to diagnose conditions or predict risk accurately,” says Gigi Avecedo-Parker, EJD, MSN, NP, APRN, CNS-BC, National Healthcare Clinical Risk Management Practice Lead at HUB International.
Small practices using templates and AI-assisted tools must monitor them closely. “Organizations aren’t always getting what they need from AI tool vendors. They must develop scenario-based training tailored to their operations and patient populations,” says Avecedo-Parker.
Actionable step: Rigorously test AI systems before using them in your practice. For those you do use, review your AI, templates or auto-populate tools used in your documentation system and set a weekly five-minute spot check to confirm clinical assessments match real patient findings. Disable auto-populate in high-risk areas or require manual confirmation before finalizing notes.
Protecting Small Healthcare Clinics from Physical Site and Safety Risks
Having a brick-and-mortar clinic comes with its own set of conveniences and risks. Besides the noted risks associated with extreme weather, Jim Burke, CSP, ARM, vice president and senior risk consultant at HUB International, shared the story of how one Texas hospital was struck by a vehicle after the driver pressed the wrong pedal. The vehicle went right through the glass, injuring people and killing one in the waiting room.
Burke shared sobering data:
- Storefront crashes happen 100 times a day across the U.S.
- They cause 16,000 injuries and 2,600 deaths annually
“Six crash-rated bollards cost about $12,000, which is cheap compared to the losses prevented,” says Burke.
Actionable step: Walk your parking lot and building exterior to identify hazards like flush curbs, unprotected entrances, or vehicles parked directly in front of windows. Add inexpensive safeguards such as wheel stops, signage, or plan for crash-rated bollards if risk is high.
Click here to learn more about how to protect your practice from storefront crashes.
Daily Resilience Practices to Strengthen Small Healthcare Business Continuity
Resilience is best built before the crisis, not during it. “Do as much as you can before a disruptive event occurs. The more you do ahead of time, the more you prevent,” says Burke.
For small practices, this mindset is especially powerful. You can’t control every risk, but you can dramatically reduce the impact of disruptions through consistent business best practices, such as the following:
- Implement processes to reduce AI and documentation errors
- Protecting onsite staff and patients with simple physical safeguards
- Stay on top of cybersecurity best practices for your own practice and for your partnering vendors
- Cross-training team members for essential tasks
- Establishing a straightforward downtime plan if your EHR is unavailable
Final actionable step: Complete a quick “environment scan” of your practice that includes physical layout, parking risks, weather exposures and reliance on technology to identify the top three vulnerabilities that could disrupt operations. Address at least one of them in early 2026.
Crisis readiness doesn’t have to be expensive, hospital-level investments. They’re proactive steps small businesses can take to protect the practice, patients and livelihood. “These are challenges every healthcare provider will face. Building a left-of-loss mentality into everyday operations is essential for enterprise risk management,” says Reilly.
For independent practices, resilience is more than a safety measure. It’s a business strategy that protects your ability to serve your community and grow sustainably.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is crisis readiness for small healthcare practices? Crisis readiness is the proactive process of building resilience into your daily operations—such as strengthening cybersecurity, preparing for weather events, and reducing documentation errors—so your practice can prevent small disruptions from turning into major business interruptions.
- Why is cybersecurity a major risk for outpatient and small healthcare clinics? Over one-third of cyberattacks target organizations with 250 employees or fewer. Small practices often have lighter security controls, shared vendor platforms, and limited downtime protocols, making breaches more damaging and recovery more expensive. Strengthening access controls, passwords, and downtime plans helps protect patient PHI and reduce business risk.
- How can AI and auto-populate tools create clinical or documentation risks? AI-assisted templates and auto-populate features can introduce serious documentation errors if not monitored closely. Incorrect assessments may slip through workflow steps, leading to misdiagnosis or patient harm. Small practices should test AI tools rigorously, require manual confirmation in high-risk areas, and conduct routine spot checks to ensure accuracy.
Crisis readiness in 2026 isn’t optional. It’s a core business function. Increasingly, it’s the difference between a quick recovery and a total shutdown. Chat with a member of our team through our website chat to learn how CM&F can help protect your independent practice, so a small disruption never becomes a crisis.
