Another in the "Health IT Crashed, But Patient Care Was Not Compromised" Series - NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

We must have health IT to prevent stupid doctors and nurses from making mistakes.  Without it, patients are at the mercy of dreaded Paper Records, which by definition cannot ever be used to provide quality care.But when the IT goes down, Patient Care Has Not Been Compromised.  This line should be trademarked, as it's seen so often.  (I even have an indexing tag for it, see this query link: http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/search/label/Patient%20care%20has%20not%20been%20compromised.)Care is never, never compromised when the IT goes belly up en masse due to information technology malpractice.  Care is only compromised by paper, no matter how good the paper records and its human stewards are.Here's the latest example that made it to the news, in Scotland:1 October 2013BBC 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. Delaying hundreds of appointments and delaying surgeries at up to 10 major hospitals seems on its face to represent "compromised care."The health board apologised to patients and said all appointments would be rescheduled.In total, 288 outpatient appointmen...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: Patient care has not been compromised healthcare IT crash IT malpractice NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Source Type: blogs