Not Exactly a Ringing Endorsement for EHRs
An emergency department (ED) in a facility in Western Sydney, Australia, banned the use of its EHR, going back to paper and pen, after struggling with downtime on the system. While a North South Wales (NSW) opposition health spokeswoman claimed that government is "putting lives at risk" with the system, the NSW government
denied the claim, with NSW Health Minister John Della Bosca explaining "I'm very clear and very certain that there was at no time a compromise of patient safety" during the downtime, according to the
Brisbane Times.
During the outage, physicians couldn't access patient records, so they didn't have information on prior visits, what medications patients were taking, which tests had been orders and past test results, according to Jill Skinner, NSW health opposition spokeswoman.
The system appears to be fairly new, as Infoworld reported on Monday that the hospital system shelled out $100 million, Australian, to purchase EHRs, and ZDNet Australia wrote in December that the hospital system would change its televisions out for bedside computers.
Nepean Hospital experienced a 6-hour disruption on Saturday, and another 2-hour disruption on Tuesday, prompting the ED to go back to paper records on Wednesday.
Staff members at Nepean didn't have faith in the system after it failed twice, according to Skinner, as reported in the Brisbane Times. The ED staff also expressed concerns about the time it took to document, as medical officers who previously saw eight to 10 patients per shift saw that number knocked down by three to five patients. "They spent so much time trying to access or enter information," Skinner said.
Getting used to an EHR isn't always easy, but maybe the ED is just experiencing some unique issues; The Western Weekender reported today that the hospital is overwhelmed with vacancies, with openings for 62 health professionals. Whatever the cause for the problems Nepean has, hopefully it's not predictive of what's to come over the next few years in America as EHRs become more widespread.