Downtime is an inevitable part of any healthcare organization. From scheduled maintenance to unplanned outages, systems will go offline from time to time. This can cause significant disruptions for patients and staff, leading to frustration. This blog post will discuss the downtime dilemma and how dbtech can help your healthcare organization overcome these challenges.
Planned vs. Unplanned Downtime in Healthcare Organizations
Healthcare organizations must be prepared for both planned and unplanned downtime. Planned downtime is typically scheduled in advance, allowing staff to adjust their schedule to avoid disruption of care. Typically, planned downtime events occur on a monthly basis for EHR system updates and software patches, as well as network and Microsoft server updates. Organizations usually will allocate two hours to these events, but frequently downtime goes longer than expected.
There are several culprits when it comes to unplanned downtime events. This includes:
- EHR crashes
- Power outages
- Network hardware or server failure
- Human error
- Cyber attacks taking down the patient registration system.
Unplanned downtime leads to delays in care and, ultimately, patient dissatisfaction. To ensure continuity of care, healthcare organizations should have a plan to address planned and unplanned downtime events.
Why EHR Outages Still Happen
Network instability used to be the number one cause of unplanned downtime events. While unscheduled downtime events still happen, this is far less frequent nowadays because networks are comparatively more stable than in years past. Despite advances in healthcare information technology, EHR outages have become the primary cause of unexpected downtime events in healthcare organizations.
EHR outages are a regular occurrence for some healthcare organizations, particularly those that rely on shared cloud hosting environments for their data. When healthcare organizations invest in dbtech’s downtime solution, they are putting protection in place to help mitigate the risks associated with EHR hosting issues, such as slow performance or the EHR being offline altogether. Moreover, dbtech ensures that providers can electronically collect vital health data during downtime, allowing for streamlined workflows and better patient health outcomes..
Organizations Need a Disaster Plan in Place for Network & EHR Outages
Healthcare technology has come a long way, and downtime can be mitigated by comprehensive downtime solutions available on the market. dbtech’s downtime solution is the perfect disaster plan for healthcare organizations seeking an all-encompassing network downtime solution.
Whether your organization relies on paper forms or has an electronic solution, providers can maximize dbtech’s Downtime solution by using our eForms solution. In addition to replacing paper forms inventory, eForms can serve as an extension of an organization’s EHR and allow for redundancy during a system outage.
As a result, providers can still access critical patient health data, use paperless registration during the event, and get up and running immediately following the event with Rapid recovery. With dbtech’s downtime solution, healthcare facilities can avoid patient data loss associated with network disruption and interrupted workflows.
dbtech: Delivering Proven Downtime Solutions to Healthcare Systems
Regarding downtime preparedness, dbtech offers a highly effective solution that helps organizations prepare for planned and unplanned downtime events. Our solutions are designed to ensure continuous operations during a downtime event while protecting patient data and delivering a superior user experience.
dbtech’s downtime solution is the perfect disaster plan for healthcare organizations seeking a comprehensive network downtime solution. Contact us today to learn how dbtech can help your organization maximize operational efficiency and minimize downtime.