Computer woes hit Banner hospital system: Another large EHR outage ... but patient safety was not compromised

Here is yet another story in the genre of "EHRs go out, but patient care has not been compromised." (See query link at http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/Patient%20care%20has%20not%20been%20compromised; there are more than 20 posts there now):Computer woes hit Banner hospital systemKen Alltucker, The Arizona Republic 12:30 a.m. EST February 20, 2014http://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."Not knowing" means that you are not in control of your life-critical information systems; rather, they are in control of you.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.It took from 10 AM to "late Wednesday" to identify a problem causing a mass outage.  That should give anyone pause about dependency on fragile information systems in the hands of hospital IT departme...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Banner Health System health IT risk healthcare IT crash Patient care has not been compromised Source Type: blogs