Monday, March 1st, 2010 - 9:22 am EST

Uptime in healthcare: Saving lives is key

Posted by: Michelle Liro

Nick Turnbull, Marathon’s VP of international sales explored the importance of ensuring that hospitals and healthcare providers suitably protect themselves for the possible failure of their IT systems to minimise disruption in a recent article published in HES magazine. An excerpt from the article is below. For more information on this topic, you can also download our recent white paper "Finding a Cure for Downtime: 7 Steps to Reducing Downtime in Healthcare Information Systems."

The management of administrative, financial and clinical aspects of a hospital rely on continuous uptime. Every single minute of downtime can jeopardise compliance, revenue and most importantly the health and wellbeing of patients. Downtime is a risk no hospital or healthcare provider can afford to take.

Hospital equipment and systems are designed for a variety of tasks, some keep track of the administrative issues of a hospital, or look after clinical information systems that concentrate on patient-related and clinical-state related data such as the electronic patient record (EPR) and the monitoring of life support machines, MRI scanners, etc. The ensured access to all IT systems is paramount for the smooth running of a hospital and to ensure quality patient care.

EPRs and the need for centralised patient information have seen regular attention in the media recently. EPR systems have the potential to bring huge benefits to patients and they are being implemented in health systems across the developed world. Storing and sharing health information electronically can help to speed up clinical communication, reduce the number of errors, and assist doctors in diagnosis and treatment. Equally, this kind of electronic data can also have vast potential to improve the quality of healthcare audit and research. However, increasing access to data through ERP systems also brings new risks to the privacy and security of health records, as well as practical aspects that need to be catered for in order to reap the full benefits of such a system without any disadvantages.

The importance of being able to access EPRs becomes apparent when looking at the accident and emergency setting or for example the cancer unit of a specific hospital. It is here that access to a patient’s medical history can become a matter of life and death.

It is clear that nowadays IT sits at the heart of modern hospitals, so it is key to ensure IT systems are available to healthcare professionals 24 hours 7 days a week. This means that hospital management and their IT support needs to be sure that the technology they deploy can monitor the entire system around the clock. So, for the last few years, hospitals and healthcare providers have turned to the latest and greatest technologies to support their systems, minimising the risk of disruptions to operations and ensuring availability.

The right solution needs to be 100% effective, which is only possibly if it monitors and receives data continually 24 hours, 7 days a week, with absolutely no hiccups. If this is not the case all the time, there could be lives at stake. If any unexpected downtime occurs, the ability to access records, the continued running of life support monitors and MRI scanners is at risk. Clearly, hospitals and healthcare providers need to ensure that their systems are adequately protected against any unexpected IT failures.

While undoubtedly many hospitals and healthcare providers are using various different systems, they should not forget that these systems need to be protected. If the servers behind the systems experience downtime, it could cause havoc with patient-facing devices and the EPR system. IT system availability is no longer an ideal – it is a necessity. That is why hospitals and healthcare providers need to be sure that when adopting the newest, ‘safest’ technologies, they also ensure that they come with rock solid availability. Continuous uptime for the healthcare industry is absolutely essential to ensure the success of the business as well as the safety of patients.
 

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