If you don't already know I work as a Network Administrator at a hospital. I've often thought, that as far as day to day operations go, I make people's jobs easier, but not really effect patient care too much. I've said several times that if someone's computer goes down, and I can't fix it, it's probably not a huge deal. Here is a story about a hospital that turned away patients due to their electronic medical record (EMR) system being down. I found this story a little alarming, especially considering hospitals are being required to migrate to a EMR system by 2015. It seems like this isn't a very good reason to turn away patients, so this seemed a little strange to me. I heard a theory that the reason they turned people away could've been due to billing as well.
On a side note, I feel our EMR system is pretty redundant and robust (knock on wood, nothing is perfect). When reading stories like this, though, it is a wake up call to make sure everything is working correctly.
I think my uncle has a similar job, but I'm not sure of his title. He works for a large nonprofit healthcare company that owns 21 hospitals. He helps to make sure the network stays up, and he is also in charge of the e-mail filtering system.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the patients were able to go to other hospitals. It seems like a silly reason to turn patients away. I could understand turning away people with minor accidents, but not major problems. A girl I know was recently hired at a clinic to scan paperwork, because they are trying to move over to a computer based system.