$1B EHR not working for Sutter Health

Sutter Health's $1 billion investment in an EHR system is not exactly resulting in a good return on its investment.

The EHR system went completely dark Monday, Aug. 26, at Sutter hospitals in northern California, exposing patients to additional risk beyond problems reported with the system in July, according to a release from the California Nurses Association (CNA). Registered nurses at the healthcare organization reported multiple problems and registered numerous complaints last month.

Sutter management has ignored the nurses' concerns, the association said.

The system was down on Friday night for a planned upgrade, according to CNA, for up to 8 hours during which nurses and other users could read medication orders and patient histories, but could not enter new data which were kept on paper records then re-entered into the computers later. On Monday morning, the system was completely down, according to the CNA, requiring clinicians to work without any access to patient information, including what medications patients were on or needed, patient history information and all other information required for safe patient care delivery.
 
“This incident is especially worrisome. It is a reminder of the false promise of information technology in medical care. No access to medication orders, patient allergies and other information puts patients at serious risk,” said CNA Legislative Director Bonnie Castillo, RN. “These systems should never be relied upon for protecting patients or assuring the delivery of the safest care.”
 
Reports from RNs throughout Sutter found little or no backup planning by hospital management, inadequate training and little support during the emergency, according to the CNA. Numerous reports indicate that registered nurses have been threatened with discipline for not entering all changes into the EHR system.

Sutter Health disputes CNA's accounting of events and provided Clinical Innovation + Technology with the following statement from vice president of communications, Bill Gleeson:

“Sutter Health undertook a long-planned, routine upgrade of its electronic health record over the weekend. There’s a certain amount of scheduled downtime associated with these upgrades, and the process was successfully completed. On Monday morning, we experienced an issue with the software that manages user access to the EHR. This caused intermittent access challenges in some locations. Our team applied a software patch to resolve the issue and restore access.

“Our caregivers and office staff have established and comprehensive processes that they follow when the EHR is offline. They followed these procedures. Patient records were always secure and intact. Prior to Monday's temporary access issue, our uptime percentage was an impressive 99.4 percent with these systems that operate 24/7.

“We appreciate the hard work of our caregivers and support staff to follow our routine back-up processes, and we regret any inconvenience this may have caused patients. California Nurses Union continues to oppose the use of information technology in healthcare but we and other healthcare provider organizations demonstrate daily that it can be used to improve patient care, convenience and access. While it’s unfortunate the union exploited and misrepresented this situation, it comes as no surprise given the fact that we are in a protracted labor dispute with CNA.”