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| Dark Shadows' Quentin Collins (David Selby) in a foul full-moon mood. |
http://www.wcax.com/story/25773022/computers-down-at-vermonts-largest-hospitalComputers down at Vermont's largest hospital
Posted: Jun 13, 2014 4:12 PM EST Updated: Jun 13, 2014 4:12 PM EST
http://medicinehatnews.com/news/local-news/2014/06/10/system-failure-has-docs-patients-upset/
System failure has docs, patients upset
By Gillian Slade on June 10, 2014
Many patients were turned away from their doctor’s office Monday because a province-wide electronic medical record computer system had collapsed.
“This is the third straight week of issues with the TELUS Wolf system,” said Dr. Donovan Nunweiler at Southlands Medical Clinic. “We feel we were encouraged by government to switch to Wolf and now it’s not working.”
A year ago 202 physician clinics across Alberta using TELUS Wolf were unable to access patient records for most of the day.
On Monday patients arrived only to be told the electronic patient files were not accessible making it impossible to see test results, past medical history and medications.
“This is affecting me big time and affecting my income,” said Ken Hoeppner, a patient at HealthWORX Medical clinic, who had waited 15 days for his appointment. “Every time government touches something they wreck it. Our health care used to be good here before Alberta Health Services took over.”
At HealthWORX, office manager Carel Liebenberg said the office was doing what it could to reschedule people. One patient had driven three hours to be there for his appointment early Monday.
Originally to encourage physicians to move to electronic medical records, the government gave a monetary incentive. Alberta Health selected TELUS Health Solutions Wolf EMR after a request for proposals in 2008.
There was a requirement for the service to be available 99.9 per cent of the time between 6 a.m. and midnight with financial penalties for failure to do so.
“There is no longer any government support,” said Nunweiler. “We (Southlands Medical Clinic) pay $2,000 a month for this. Who is going to hold TELUS accountable now? The government has abandoned us. Cost and issues switching patient data, when systems are not compatible, prevents us from going somewhere else.”
TELUS Electronic Health Records (EHR) provides a better way to share, access and consolidate information.
Without quick, secure access to complete and reliable information, healthcare provision can be inefficient, preventing patients from receiving the best care possible.
Liebenberg reached TELUS at 9 a.m. Monday.
“They said they had just become aware of the issue and that their data technicians were in a meeting discussing the problem,” said Liebenberg. “Last week the system was extremely slow, taking 15 minutes for a physician to simply renew a prescription.”
Nunweiler said he’d made notes on paper as he struggled to manage the snail’s pace of the system last week. Monday he would be adding to those notes and envisaged several hours at night entering the data to make it current.
Liebenberg said the need to re-schedule appointments reflects badly on the clinic and some patients don’t understand it’s a system failure beyond the clinic’s.
Dr. Franz Yonker said HealthWORX had been using JonokeMed but the government endorsed TELUS Wolf and physicians were encouraged to switch.
“I think this is really bad for a government-backed system,” said Yonker.
Becky Nelson arrived for her appointment to refill prescriptions and was concerned about how long it would take to get another appointment.
“The government needs to get this on track. We are suffering the consequences,” said Nelson.
Donna Schneider brought her mother Vernie Ferguson in for results of some tests. Ferguson said she was not at all well.
“There is nowhere else to go and get my test results,” said Ferguson.
The News requested an interview with TELUS but there was no response on Monday afternoon.
The News requested information from Alberta Health but that was not available on Monday.
Computer woes hit Banner hospital system
Ken Alltucker, The Arizona Republic 12:30 a.m. EST February 20, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/19/computer-woes-slam-banner-hospital-system/5630829/
The Phoenix-based health system used backup paper records to help provide patient care.
PHOENIX -- Banner Health grappled with a widespread computer outage Wednesday as hospitals and doctors resorted to backup paper systems to provide care for patients.
The Phoenix-based health system did not immediately know what triggered the computer troubles that started just before 10 a.m. PST. An official described the computer troubles as a rolling outage of computer systems at hospitals and other health care facilities in Phoenix, Colorado and Nevada.
By late Wednesday, a spokesman said, technicians had identified the problem and were fixing it. They expect to investigate the root cause of the problem Thursday.
Banner Health, the Phoenix area's largest health care system, activated "downtime procedures" that included using paper-based systems to track medications and other care provided to patients, officials said.
Banner's emergency departments still provided care to patients and accepted new patients.
Some non-emergency surgeries and appointments were delayed because of the computer troubles.
"There have been some delays and inconveniences, but we are still providing care," said Bill Byron, Banner Health's senior vice president of public relations.
Banner Health, which operates 24 hospitals and several primary-care offices and outpatient centers in more than a half-dozen states, was working to "reboot" the computer systems Wednesday evening through a series of sequential fixes, Byron said.
In the meantime, Banner officials were able to retrieve computer-based records that detailed patients' medical histories, including any medications, laboratory results and procedures that were previously performed.
Nurses and doctors shifted to writing on paper records after the computer systems experienced trouble Wednesday morning.
Information from those paper charts will be keyed into the patients' computer-based health records after the problem is fixed.
Banner Health has been among the most advanced health systems in the nation in converting to computer-based health records.
Banner Estrella Medical Center was among the first hospitals to open as an "all-digital" facility in the past decade. Banner's other hospitals have largely completed the final stages of installing computerized record-keeping in areas such as physician order and entry and electronic documentation.
Arizona law does not require hospitals to notify state health regulators in the event of such a widespread outage.
However, some hospitals have internal policies requiring that they notify health accrediting organizations or federal regulatory agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an Arizona Department of Health Services spokeswoman said.
1 October 2013
BBC News
Appointments postponed after major IT failure at NHSGGC (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
Hundreds of outpatient appointments and a number of operations had to be postponed after computer systems failed at Scotland's biggest health board.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said technicians were working through the night to fix a "major IT problem" which occurred on Tuesday morning.
It affected staff access to clinical and administrative systems.
The health board apologised to patients and said all appointments would be rescheduled.
In total, 288 outpatient appointments, four planned inpatient procedures, 23 day surgery cases and 40 chemotherapy sessions were postponed.
There was also some delay in calls to the switchboard being answered.
The problem may have affected up to 10 major hospitals across the health board area.
But emergency operations were not compromised - neither were community services.
A spokeswoman said: "Our technical staff are working flat out to resolve this.
"The problem relates to our networks and the way staff can connect to some of our clinical and administrative systems.
It was not clear how long the disruption would last.
NHSGGC said if it did continue, people who were scheduled for treatment would be contacted directly.
RNs Say Sutter’s New Electronic System Causing Serious Disruptions to Safe Patient Care at East Bay Hospitals
Introduction of a new electronic medical records system at Sutter corporation East Bay hospitals has produced multiple problems with safe care delivery that has put patients at risk, charged the California Nurses Association today.
Problems with technology are not unique to health care ... [What is unique to healthcare IT is the complete lack of regulation - ed.]
In over 100 reports submitted by RNs at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, nurses cited a variety of serious problems with the new system, known as Epic. The reports are in union forms RNs submit to management documenting assignments they believe to be unsafe.
Patient care concerns included computerized delays in timely administration of medications and contact with physicians, ability to properly monitor patients, and other delays in treatment. Many noted that the excessive amount of time required to interact with the computer system, inputting and accessing data, sharply cuts down on time they can spend with patients with frequent complaints from patients about not seeing their RN. [Note: patients are not given the opportunity for informed consent about the risks, nor opt-out of EHR use in their care - ed.]
Healthcare IT News
Setback for Sutter after $1B EHR crashes'No access to medication orders, patient allergies and other information puts patients at serious risk'SACRAMENTO, CA | August 28, 2013The nearly $1 billion electronic health record system at Sutter Health in Northern California crashed early this week, leaving nurses and clinical staff unable to access any patient information for a full day.
he Epic EHR was down Aug. 23 due to a planned upgrade for eight hours during which nurses and other clinical users could read medication orders and patient histories but had to record new data on paper to then be re-entered into the system later, according to reports from the California Nurses Association, part of National Nurses United, the largest nurses union in the U.S.
Then, on the morning of Aug. 26 at approximately 8 a.m., the system crashed completely, at which time nurses, physicians and hospital staff had no access to patient information, including what medications patients were taking or required to take and all vital patient history data.
The Epic EHR went dark at several Sutter Health locations, including Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Eden Medical Center, Mills-Peninsula Hospital, Sutter Delta, Sutter Tracy, Sutter Modesto and numerous affiliated clinics.
"This incident is especially worrisome," said Bonnie Castilla, RN, CNA legislative director, in a news release. "No access to medication orders, patient allergies and other information puts patients at serious risk. These systems should never be relied upon for protecting patients or assuring the delivery of the safest care." [This is no exaggeration. My mother was nearly killed by such a problem when caused by an EHR defect (link) that I averted at the last minute by happenstance of showing up at the right time, while she recuperating from another EHR-related disaster - ed.]
Worse, clinicians must now serve their Cybernetic Master to perfection, or be whipped (apparently to improve morale):Some RNs also reported that Sutter failed to provide adequate support during the blackout and didn't implement adequate backup planning.
"All information such as medication administration records and patient histories was outdated by two to three days," said Mike Hill, Alta Bates Summit RN, in a news release. "There were no orders that could be seen of any kind through the day so nurses called for what they needed."
Kevin Sweat, an emergency room RN at Eden Medical Center, a Sutter affiliate, also weighed in on the blackout, saying that in his 12 years as an RN he has never seen a system crash like this.
... "We have been on Epic for 5 months now, and we can no longer have incorrect orders, missing information or incorrect or missing charges. Starting on September 1st, errors made in any of the above will result in progressive discipline," according to another hospital memo sent to staff.
Bad Health IT ("BHIT") is defined as IT that is ill-suited to purpose, hard to use, unreliable, loses data or provides incorrect data, causes cognitive overload, slows rather than facilitates users, lacks appropriate alerts, creates the need for hypervigilance (i.e., towards avoiding IT-related mishaps) that increases stress, is lacking in security, compromises patient privacy or otherwise demonstrates suboptimal design and/or implementation.
The computer system that Boulder Community Hospital uses to manage patient records, which had been down for almost two weeks, is now up and running again, hospital officials said Saturday.
Meditech, the system used by the hospital to manage patient records, went down March 12 and affected the hospital, its Foothills campus, eight laboratories and six imaging centers. It was put back into full service at about 3 p.m. Friday, according to hospital spokesman Rich Sheehan.
Sheehan said an investigation showed the outage was a result of a malfunction in one of the main computer servers ... the hospital has replaced the hard drives for the server that failed and are inspecting the remaining servers ... [the failure] resulted in the system being unable to access patient information. The malfunction affected both the primary server and a backup server kept off-site.
Boulder Community Hospital computer system crash frustrates patients
Officials say it could take until Friday for outage to be resolved
By Brittany Anas
Camera Staff Writer
Posted: 03/18/2013 07:23:23 PM MDT
Updated: 03/18/2013 07:24:16 PM MDT
A prolonged computer system outage is preventing Boulder Community Hospital from accessing patient records -- making it difficult for people to schedule surgeries, get test results and make appointments for routine blood work.
Meditech, the system used by the hospital to manage patient records, went down in the middle of last week. It could take the hospital until Friday to get the system back up, said Rich Sheehan, spokesman for Boulder Community.
While information technology officials are investigating what caused the outage, Sheehan said patient records are protected and hospital officials don't believe they've been hacked.
The outage affects the hospital, its Foothills campus, eight laboratories and six imaging centers.
"We know medical care is important to people, so we understand the concerns those in the community have," Sheehan said. "We have a lot of people working on this, doing the best they can to solve this problem in a safe manner and as quickly as possible."
In the meantime, the hospital is using manual paper record-keeping systems and traditional paper charts for its inpatients. Hospital officials say the system allows them to continue treating patients, provide diagnostic services and collect important clinical information that will be entered later into each patient's electronic health record.
But that concerns Eroca Lowe, whose mother was in the hospital Thursday through Sunday with gallbladder pain.
Lowe said the outage made it extremely difficult for doctors and nurses to do their jobs while hunting down lab results. She criticizes the hospital for not having a backup computer system and resorting to paper records.
"That's not a hospital in 2013," she said.
... Dina Huber said it took her and her significant other six days to schedule an appointment for a hernia surgery because the system used for scheduling is down.
"If they can't keep their computer system running, how can we trust them to perform surgery?" Huber said.
A physician who works at Boulder Community Hospital, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he doesn't think the outage is compromising the health or safety of patients. But, he said, the backup response "seems a little haphazard, and it's not an organized plan." He said physicians are left chasing down records.
Sheehan said the hospital is prioritizing accuracy and patient safety while getting the records system up and running.
"We apologize for the delays, but this was an unavoidable situation," Sheehan said.
March 9, 2013 12:17 am
Human error the cause of UPMC electronic issue
A systemwide problem with UPMC's information systems Wednesday left electronic patient records and other data inaccessible for about three hours. A UPMC spokeswoman said the hospitals "immediately went to manual backup systems, and we quickly identified and fixed the problem." She said there was no indication that patient care was compromised by the incident, which was due to human error.
