Showed up for my #Covid19 test today at @cvspharmacy. When I got to the window they told me they couldn’t test me because their system was down. Why didn’t they notify me before I showed up? Why can’t they associate my test with my information-which they can see-& fill-in later?
— Jan Oldenburg (@janoldenburg) July 29, 2021
Have you ever been on the patient side of this? I know I have and it’s infuriating. Especially when the healthcare organization doesn’t communicate effectively with you what’s happening and what could happen. Of course, the real problem here is that they probably don’t know what’s going to happen. Especially an organization as large as CVS.
Although, the problem is just as bad on the other side. The worker at CVS is likely just as frustrated as the patient. Downtime is no fun for any party.
That said, at this point not having a downtime procedure is inexcusable. I don’t care if you’re CVS or the solo practice on the corner. We all know that downtime is possible and we need to be prepared. Downtime can happen in so many ways, that a healthcare organization must be prepared. In fact, the number of ways that downtime can happen continues to grow. We used to have all local networks and so the number of points of failure was smaller. Even then, downtime was bound to happen. It’s a feature of technology. A power supply dies. A network connection fails. A disk runs out of space and brings the server down.
Now our systems are interconnected and the number of points of failure that could cause downtime has grown dramatically. We used to always talk about the construction guy outside digging up the internet line. Yes, that’s still possible. However, there are hundreds of other reasons. Plus, we can’t ignore things like malware and ransomware that can take your systems down for an extended period.
I still think some in healthcare think that ignorance is bliss, but it’s not. Ignorance is a good way to lose your job. And downtime can happen to any size organization. If Google can go down, anyone can go down. You have to be prepared.
When I first implemented an EHR about 16 years ago, we understood the need for a downtime procedure. Luckily, we had great leadership who got on board and created a procedure for what they’d do when the EHR was down.
A few months after we created the procedure, the internet went down. Nothing we could do and not a clear understanding of when it was going to come back. I’ll admit that my initial reaction was fear. I felt responsible for the downtime even though it turned out it had nothing to do with me. I was slightly paralyzed and trying to figure out what to do.
Luckily, we had an amazing leader, Tina, who happened to be on the floor that day. When everyone was starting to go into a panic mode, she turned on her leader mode. In a way that only Tina could do, she strongly said, “It’s ok. We planned for this. We know what to do. Let’s do it.” She calmed the troubled waters and everyone went to work.
I’ll admit that downtime is never fun. It wasn’t fun even in the experience shared above. However, having a plan made it doable. Everyone knew what to do and they did it. Not having a plan leads to chaos and nobody wants that. Not patients or healthcare workers.
When the #EHR system is down we must be grateful for patients bringing with them their updated medical record.
Depends on the visit and if they trust the record that the patient brings in. They’ll be more worried about having to document the visit once the EHR comes back.