what to do when EMR is down....

[jmj11]

For people who CAN go back to paper charts, the decision becomes something along these lines:

 

"Is the income I'll forego by not operating greater than the risks I'll take by running on paper?"

 

Sure, patients can answer questions... but how many times have you met patients who don't know their meds or allergies?

 

The moral obligation is to practice gold-standard medicine, and if you're converted to an EMR and that EMR is down, you simply can't do it.  Don't sent the guy with chest pain home, send him to the ED! Swollen calf? Same thing!

 

This will all be mooted by malpractice insurance--if I were in the medical insurance industry, and I'm not, I'd put clauses in all malpractice coverage that said that claims made for events occurring when an EMR was down would not be covered. Once they do that, and I expect them to eventually, it's not your choice any longer, is it?

Our EHR has gone down twice in two years. Both times our care continued at the gold standard.  I just had to work harder and stay later. I have to treat each patient as a new patient and recollect their med list and allergies. The rest is charting.  No change in care.

[ventana]

For people who CAN go back to paper charts, the decision becomes something along these lines:

 

"Is the income I'll forego by not operating greater than the risks I'll take by running on paper?"

 

Sure, patients can answer questions... but how many times have you met patients who don't know their meds or allergies?

 

The moral obligation is to practice gold-standard medicine, and if you're converted to an EMR and that EMR is down, you simply can't do it.  Don't sent the guy with chest pain home, send him to the ED! Swollen calf? Same thing!

 

This will all be mooted by malpractice insurance--if I were in the medical insurance industry, and I'm not, I'd put clauses in all malpractice coverage that said that claims made for events occurring when an EMR was down would not be covered. Once they do that, and I expect them to eventually, it's not your choice any longer, is it?

 

 

100% disagree.

 

If medicine was as easy as picking up the phone and talking to a patient.  We all would be out of a job, it is about interviewing, physical exam, evaluating the patient.  These all can be done without an EMR.  Think about it, every urgent care an emergency room can and does treat the patient without necessarily having an up and running EMR.  Certainly it is easier, but it is not a requirement to care.  I do agree there may well be some patients that are better served by having come back when the EMR is up, but this is a case-by-case situation, as is true in life blanket statements typically are wrong.  Simply closing the shop and going home is a blanket statement.