Martin Health System, Florida: Our EHRs were out for two days, but patient care has not been compromised, sayeth Pinocchio

This is yet another post in my ever-growing "our EHRs went out due to IT incompetence, and chaos ensued, but patient care has not been compromised" series (see query link: http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/Patient%20care%20has%20not%20been%20compromised):Martin Health System looking into network outage that slowed hospital operationsPosted: 01/24/2014By: Meghan McRobertshttp://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_martin_county/martin-health-system-looking-into-network-outage-that-slowed-hospital-operationsMARTIN COUNTY, Fla.-- Martin Health System is looking into what caused some computer hardware to fail Wednesday, leading to network outage in all of the Martin Health System hospitals.Things were back to normal Friday morning, according to hospital spokesperson, Scott Samples. Translation: for two days there was a complete network outage, with no EHRs, email, CPOE etc. But since Wednesday night patients say the atmosphere around the hospital was chaotic.Patients likely noted doctors and nurses running like headless chickens.  I note that chaos and safe medical care are not good bedfellows.Hospital staff, doctors and nurses access the computer system to read patient charts and medical information. Without it, they were left digging into paper documents.The paper documents left laying around would have best had scanty, sparse patient information, since the computer in computerized hospitals has become the primary source of truth.  (One might think such a system,...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Martin Health System Martin Hospital South Martin Medical Center Meghan McRoberts Patient care has not been compromised Scott Samples Tradition Medical Center Source Type: blogs