Emergency Department Downtime Case
Study Evelyn Allison
HIM 301 Introduction to Health Informatics
Instructor: Seyra Hughes
07/15/2019
This study source was downloaded by 100000847097152 from CourseHero.com on 10-20-2023 15:01:14 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/52749700/HIM-301-Week-3-assignment-1docx/
, EHR downtime can be a difficult thing but in an age of technology and electronics, our
healthcare must keep up with the advancing capabilities in order to best suit that of our patients.
With all technology today there are updates, crashes, and unforeseen shutdowns that happen on a
regular basis. With these regular happenings healthcare organizations must be prepared for the
times when the systems experience such downtime.
It is crucial for an organization to frequently complete risk assessments to their systems.
Risk assessments are essentially testing that the organizations IT team preform on their systems
in order to pre-diagnose any possible downtimes. During these assessments the IT team should
preform necessary backups of the system to be used in the event of an unforeseen downtime and
to prevent the loss of information. By preforming such assessments and backups allows for the
organizations system to remain as highly functioning as possible. A successful assessment will
allow for the organization to see the areas in which could cause any unforeseen downtimes and
allow for the IT team to plan any upgrades, backups, and revisions for the most optimal time
frames. By doing this the IT team and the organization ensure that a loss of data does not occur
or at a minimal rate. The loss of data can be critical to an organization. Loss of patient
information means a possible loss in the accounts receivable from that patient, but even more
crucial could be the loss of diagnosis information and lab results in pertains to the patients’
health. All possible losses effect the organization dramatically.
In preforming such assessments and/or upgrades and backups it is important for the IT
team to inform the users of the system of the downtime. This can be done by a monthly, weekly,
or even emergency base memo. In the case of the system downtime in the case study a memo
should appear something like:
This study source was downloaded by 100000847097152 from CourseHero.com on 10-20-2023 15:01:14 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/52749700/HIM-301-Week-3-assignment-1docx/
Study Evelyn Allison
HIM 301 Introduction to Health Informatics
Instructor: Seyra Hughes
07/15/2019
This study source was downloaded by 100000847097152 from CourseHero.com on 10-20-2023 15:01:14 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/52749700/HIM-301-Week-3-assignment-1docx/
, EHR downtime can be a difficult thing but in an age of technology and electronics, our
healthcare must keep up with the advancing capabilities in order to best suit that of our patients.
With all technology today there are updates, crashes, and unforeseen shutdowns that happen on a
regular basis. With these regular happenings healthcare organizations must be prepared for the
times when the systems experience such downtime.
It is crucial for an organization to frequently complete risk assessments to their systems.
Risk assessments are essentially testing that the organizations IT team preform on their systems
in order to pre-diagnose any possible downtimes. During these assessments the IT team should
preform necessary backups of the system to be used in the event of an unforeseen downtime and
to prevent the loss of information. By preforming such assessments and backups allows for the
organizations system to remain as highly functioning as possible. A successful assessment will
allow for the organization to see the areas in which could cause any unforeseen downtimes and
allow for the IT team to plan any upgrades, backups, and revisions for the most optimal time
frames. By doing this the IT team and the organization ensure that a loss of data does not occur
or at a minimal rate. The loss of data can be critical to an organization. Loss of patient
information means a possible loss in the accounts receivable from that patient, but even more
crucial could be the loss of diagnosis information and lab results in pertains to the patients’
health. All possible losses effect the organization dramatically.
In preforming such assessments and/or upgrades and backups it is important for the IT
team to inform the users of the system of the downtime. This can be done by a monthly, weekly,
or even emergency base memo. In the case of the system downtime in the case study a memo
should appear something like:
This study source was downloaded by 100000847097152 from CourseHero.com on 10-20-2023 15:01:14 GMT -05:00
https://www.coursehero.com/file/52749700/HIM-301-Week-3-assignment-1docx/
