Boston hospital computer crash a lesson to the industry

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's computer system crashed repeatedly over several days recently, a problem that periodically blocked access to patient records, prescriptions, laboratory reports and other information. The crash forced the hospital to revert to the paper-based systems of what one executive called "the hospital of the 1970s."

Boston Globe, Nov. 19, 2002

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/323/metro/Hospital

[llg, PhD, RN]

It happened at a hospital I was working at years ago. No one seems to believe it will ever happen to them -- until it does.

llg

[oramar]

Computers go down all the time at many hospitals. I think this is newsworthy because it was the most advanced system of it's type and supposed to be immune to problems. I can tell you that most of the unscheduled down times are short and the danger to patients is somewhat limited. However, after a while it gets to be a real danger and there is always some danger. The places where I worked had a lot of people around from the old days and we just went back to the old paper system until new the system came back on. However, as time passes there are fewer and fewer people around that know how to function in a non computer enviroment and that is scary. There was never a policy at any hospital I worked or a back up system to use when the computer went down. Going back to the old way was just the natural thing.

[Sleepyeyes]

We have a backup system for computer downtime. It's when the tube system goes out that we're really upset--the lab's a couple buildings away