How to Get the Most Out of Your EHR Downtime Solution

8 May 2023

AUTHORED BY: DB Technology

As healthcare providers know, any disruption to the Electronic Health Record (EHR) downtime process can significantly impact patient care and safety. That’s why dbtech’s innovative EHR downtime solution is designed to quickly and efficiently prevent and manage system outages, allowing hospital staff to focus on productivity and rendering excellent patient care. This blog post will discuss all of the features available with dbtech’s downtime solution and how healthcare staff can leverage them to get the most out of their downtime solution.

Downtime Procedure vs. Downtime Solution

Few hospitals have a “true” downtime solution. Hospitals will often resort to paper-based workflows or downtime procedures, which are no longer enough to ensure seamless continuity of care.

With our dbtech’s downtime solution, hospitals can eliminate the need for paper documentation during downtime, making the process more efficient and secure. Our solution offers online viewing of critical downtime information, electronic registration, and eForms with electronic signature capture, which streamlines patient intake and reduces the risk of errors.

When the downtime is over, our OutBound HL7 or file export allows for the instant transfer of electronic notes back to the EHR. As a result, patient records remain up-to-date and accurate, while staff can quickly resume typical care provision.

Hospitals Should Leverage These Downtime Features & Workflows 

Hospital staff not leveraging a two way HL7 feed  between their downtime solution and their EHR is a missed opportunity, in addition to not using eForms/Interactive forms within the Downtime solution. These critical features can enhance productivity, reduce documentation errors, and promote better patient care. Moreover, expanding the use of the Downtime solution to clinical staff for electronic documentation of treatment has proven to be effective in reducing paper notes while maintaining patient record accuracy.

Hospitals can maximize their downtime productivity and minimize errors by taking advantage of the features and digitized workflows available with dbtech’s EHR downtime solution. These features and workflows include:

  • Ability to send critical patient info (metadata, clinical data, such as medication reports, schedules and census reports) to the downtime workstations.
  • Staff can create new encounters in the Downtime solution and print armbands and labels.
  • Electronic export of patient info from the Downtime solution to the EHR following the downtime event.

How This Customer Maximizes Our Downtime Solution

In one instance, a customer of ours was not leveraging Downtime Solution’s ability to scan documents into the Downtime solution. They would copy documents such as patient identification and insurance cards to scan them into the EHR following the downtime event. 

Instead, they can scan these things into the Downtime solution and have the documents exported electronically after the downtime event. In effect, this customer eliminates the potential loss of paperwork and the inefficiency of a manual workflow.

Another innovative Downtime Solution use-case hospitals can leverage is using dbtech’s eForms to design discharge instruction templates and then using the Downtime solution to create and print discharge paperwork during a downtime event. This eliminates the need to manually type out and print paper discharge instructions during a downtime event.

How to Evaluate the Effectiveness of Your Downtime Solution

Our customers invest in our EHR Downtime Solution to ensure the continuity of healthcare operations. However, simply having the Solution isn’t enough to maximize its benefits. Evaluating the effectiveness of our Downtime Solution enables users to get the most out of it. 

This includes:

  1. Regular Assessments: Our team of experts can walk you through a downtime assessment to identify areas of strength and improvement. This empowers you to optimize your workflow and reduce the risk of system outages.
  2. Implementation Best Practices: Our implementation team advises you during implementation on best practices so you can leverage everything our Downtime solution has to offer.
  3. Continuous Assistance: Customers are always encouraged to come back to the team for assistance and an assessment of the current state configuration and workflow, and we will make recommendations accordingly..

dbtech: Providing Best-In-Class Downtime Solutions

Quality of care is always a top priority in healthcare settings. That’s why our Downtime Solution provides best-in-class capabilities that help hospitals provide more efficient patient care during downtime while benefiting from quick recovery following the event. Our Downtime Solution transforms how healthcare organizations manage system outages with features like HL7 feeds, eForms/Interactive forms, and streamlined workflows.

Book a downtime audit assessment to evaluate where your organization is at today and see how our team can improve your downtime.

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