The EMR will be inaccessible tomorrow. Please use Downtime Procedures.

7 September 2016

AUTHORED BY: DB Technology

BY GREG PARK

An email with this title is dreaded by hospital employees, especially when staff are blindsided by unscheduled downtimes that leave them struggling to access patient histories or collect new data.

Your hospital, along with every modern healthcare provider, depends on the collection and accessibility of reliable and timely patient information, yet EMR and network downtimes are inevitable and occur without notice due to software updates, hardware failures and ransomware.

When downtimes happen, patients, providers and support staff feel the pain.

The quality of patient data deteriorates, the likelihood of duplicate medical record numbers increases, and staff spends excessive time recovering. Recovery includes registering all patients from handwritten forms into the EMR, scanning photocopied documents into the EDM, and printing forms and labels.

When downtimes happen your hospital is more likely to experience medication errors, delays in treatment, and according to Thomson Reuters, expenses on the average of $266 per minute.

Consider your peers as you ask yourself, “How much downtime do our contingency plans cover?”.

Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital down 8 days due to ransomware
HCA 165 hospitals down for 3 days due to fatal EMR corruption
Medstar Health down for 3 days due to EMR malfunction following a routine software update
Boulder Community Hospital down for 10 days due to EMR malfunction
When downtimes happen dbtech’s Downtime Solution relieves the pain efficiently & economically.

Patients are registered on Downtime Workstations

Input is managed to ensure data quality

eForms and eSignatures replace paper forms for waivers and releases

All data collected during downtime is interfaced to your EMR or EDM

Downtime recovery will take minutes rather than hours

Thanks to the EMR your chart is now paperless, but when downtimes occur clinical and administrative personnel may have only their memory to work from. “What was the results of the patient’s last test?” “What next of kin can I contact because of an emergency?”. With dbtech’s Downtime Solution critical information is broadcast across your network to Downtime Workstations. No more guess work and your employees can continue to make informed decisions.

And finally when your downtime event is over, staff won’t have to scan previously photocopied documents or add new patients to the EMR. All of this will be completed by the dbtech Downtime Solution!

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