Choosing the right electronic health record system for your hospital is a decision that takes a lot of time and strategic planning. The hospital EHR is critical to patient care and the clinician’s ability to provide care. MEDITECH is a leading the charge providing the best electronic health record (EHR) system for healthcare organizations. As with any software system, there is always the possibility of downtime. Whether the downtime is a result of a planned update or an unexpected outage, there must be a plan to provide data continuance during the outage. With the critical life-saving data contained within the electronic health record system there must be a solution to provide uninterrupted access to the EHR data when an outage occurs. When MEDITECH goes down, it can have a significant impact on the operations of a healthcare organization.
The clinician workflow is vital to providing the highest quality patient care. When an outage occurs this can severely impact the clinical workflow. Something as simple as a sign on procedure can cause an impact. Patient care depends on the availability of access to critical patient data with the ability to see how that data is trending. Limited data sets lead to limited ability to provide quality patient care.
This is an exciting time in the evolution of the electronic health record systems. The technological advancements are astounding and providing ways for health systems to provide unprecedented care due to greater access to patient data. As the technical advancements quickly progress, updates and patches are a critical part of maintaining the most up to date EHR system. This makes the selection of the downtime solution even more critical to the well-being of patient care and clinical workflows.
A downtime solution is a software application that can help to mitigate the impact of MEDITECH downtime. Downtime solutions can vary how they access the data and how they present the data. The most common solution is a report-based solution that requires heavy amounts of maintenance which provides a static document of a snapshot of the EHR data.
There must be a better way to provide clinicians the ability to continue care during a downtime. What if there was a way to have a parallel data set that was a near real-time copy that was accessible during a downtime? The ability to have a more interactive view into the data, with a confidence that the data is a near real-time view of the EHR ensures the ability to continue with the clinical workflow. This is what has driven the team at IPeople Healthcare to continue to develop their Offline Suite.
Over the past twenty years working with healthcare systems around the world, the IPeople Healthcare team has gained some valuable insights into what makes a downtime solution valuable for a healthcare organization. These are a few of the keys to choosing a quality downtime solution:
The benefits of choosing the right downtime solution:
- Continuity of care: A downtime solution can help to ensure that patients continue to receive the care they need even when MEDITECH is down. This can be done by providing access to patient records, scheduling appointments, and ordering medications.
- Reduced costs: A downtime solution can help to reduce the costs associated with MEDITECH downtime. This can be done by reducing the need for manual workarounds, avoiding lost productivity, and minimizing the risk of data breaches.
- Improved compliance: A downtime solution can help to improve compliance with HIPAA and other regulations. This can be done by providing a secure way to access patient records and by ensuring that data is protected in the event of a MEDITECH outage.
What are your organizational needs?
There are a number of different downtime solutions available for MEDITECH. When choosing a downtime solution, it is important to consider the specific needs of your organization. Some factors to consider include:
- The size of your organization: The size of your organization will affect the number of users and the amount of data that needs to be protected.
- The type of healthcare organization: The type of healthcare organization will affect the specific features and functionality that are needed.
- The budget: The cost of a downtime solution will vary depending on the features and functionality that are needed.
If you are using MEDITECH, it is important to have a downtime solution in place. A downtime solution can help to mitigate the impact of MEDITECH downtime and protect your patients, your organization, and your data.
Additional benefits of having a downtime solution for MEDITECH:
- Improved patient satisfaction: Patients are more likely to be satisfied with their care when they know that their healthcare organization has a plan in place to continue to provide care in the event of a MEDITECH outage.
- Enhanced staff morale: Staff morale can suffer when MEDITECH is down. A downtime solution can help to keep staff morale high by providing them with a sense of security and knowing that their work is still being done.
- Increased productivity: A downtime solution can help to increase productivity by reducing the need for manual workarounds and lost productivity.
If you are considering a downtime solution for MEDITECH, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
- The cost of a downtime solution can vary. Depending on the features and functionality that are needed the downtime solution can be scaled to fit the budget requirements.
- It is important to choose a downtime solution that is compatible with your MEDITECH system. It is a critical component of a downtime solution to have the ability to provide data access no matter which version of MEDITECH the data is coming from.
- You should also make sure that the downtime solution is easy to use and can be implemented quickly. Yes, your IT team may be seen as superheroes when they save the day from technical disasters. Unfortunately, it is all too common that the IT project list is quite extensive and minimizing the taxing implementation is key to a successful downtime implementation. Additionally the ease of use by the clinical staff is a key component to a great downtime solution.
Having a downtime solution for MEDITECH is an important investment for any healthcare organization. By choosing the right solution, you can protect your patients, your organization, and your data in the event of a MEDITECH outage.
IPeople Healthcare is fiercely passionate about providing the most innovative and integrated solutions for MEDITECH. When it comes to downtime, we believe that patient care should not have to suffer. Patient’s lives are literally on the line and lifesaving decisions should not be impacted due to an outage. This drives us to continue to innovate the most integrated solution to maintain workflows and critical data access during a downtime.
To learn more about the IPeople Healthcare Offline Suite you can schedule a demo with our team.
If you will be attending the upcoming MUSE Inspire Conference in Denver; make sure to stop by the IPeople Healthcare booth (401) to learn more and see a live demo. We’d love to help strategize how the IPeople Healthcare downtime solution can be implemented in your hospital.
