Can dbtech Support a Downtime Event That Affects Only One Floor or Unit Rather Than the Whole Facility?
Yes, and this is an important capability because unit-specific or floor-specific outages are among the most common downtime scenarios in healthcare settings, particularly in large facilities with complex network infrastructure. A local network switch failure, a network segment issue, a workstation problem that affects one nursing unit’s ability to access the EHR, or a departmental system that goes offline while the rest of the facility continues operating normally are all scenarios that require a localized downtime response rather than a facility-wide activation.
Managing a unit-specific outage effectively requires a different approach than managing a facility-wide event, and dbtech’s architecture supports both.
How Unit-Level Downtime Works in dbtech
dbtech’s downtime workstations are deployed at specific locations throughout the facility, each configured for the department or unit where it is located. In a unit-level downtime event, only the workstations in the affected area need to be activated. The rest of the facility continues operating normally on the live EHR while the affected unit uses the dbtech workstations as its backup system.
From a technical perspective, this is straightforward because each downtime workstation operates independently. Activating the workstations in one unit does not affect any other unit’s access to the live EHR, and the data on the activated workstations reflects the same HL7-synchronized patient data that would be available during a facility-wide downtime event. The clinical staff in the affected unit have the same capabilities available to them whether the outage is limited to their floor or extends to the entire building.
The Activation Decision for a Unit-Level Outage
The activation decision for a unit-level outage is one that the department lead or charge nurse can and should be empowered to make without waiting for a facility-wide downtime declaration. The downtime policy should specify that when a clinical unit loses access to the EHR for a defined period, whether through a local network failure, a workstation problem, or any other cause, the charge nurse has authority to activate the unit’s downtime workstations and proceed with downtime procedures without requiring approval from IT or nursing administration.
This decentralized activation authority is important for patient safety. A nursing unit that cannot access the MAR and cannot verify current patient medications is in a patient safety risk situation regardless of whether the rest of the facility is affected. Waiting for a facility-wide declaration before activating downtime procedures creates an unnecessary gap in patient safety protection.
The downtime policy should also specify the communication obligation that accompanies unit-level activation: the charge nurse notifies the nursing supervisor and the IT help desk that downtime procedures have been activated on the unit, which allows IT to investigate the cause and provides the nursing supervisor with situational awareness without requiring IT approval for the clinical decision to activate.
How Unit-Level Data Is Reconciled After Recovery
The post-outage reconciliation process for a unit-level downtime event follows the same steps as a facility-wide event but is limited in scope to the affected unit. Documentation created in dbtech eForms during the unit-level outage is exported back into the EHR after the unit’s connectivity is restored. New patient registrations created during the outage are reconciled with the EHR using the downtime encounter numbers. The reconciliation is typically faster and less resource-intensive than a facility-wide event because the volume of downtime-period documentation is smaller and limited to a single unit’s patient population.
One practical consideration for unit-level outages is that patients who were transferred into or out of the affected unit during the outage period may have partial records split between the dbtech downtime system and the live EHR. Identifying these patients during reconciliation and ensuring that their complete record is assembled in the EHR is an additional step that the unit-level reconciliation process should specifically address.
For more detail on the reconciliation process see our post on how to reconcile downtime data back into the EHR after an outage. To learn how dbtech would be deployed across your facility to support both unit-level and facility-wide downtime scenarios, request a demo or contact our team.