Nobody likes to hear these stories but it happens. Of course all will be digging through to see what was the cause and it could have been the updates that were recently added. Even when you do your Windows updates you get one that doesn’t load properly and you have to do a restore and do it again. This could be the same but on a much larger basis of course.
The nurses here with complaining about not wanting electronic records should hang 
up that complaint though and work with it as that’s not going to change. Again it’s unfortunate but it’s only 5 months from when it was implemented too so there’s something to be said there as well as I would guess there’s quite a bit more “work in progress” happening too. The Epic system is customized by preferences to meet the needs of the Hospitals and thus so every installation is not exactly the same as far as features and some functionality. It is amazing that Visual Basic, as what is used on the front end of Epic is still as stable as can be for the most part with MUMPS on the back end.
Sutter is not the first and won’t be the last to experience a crash but as mentioned, a better back up system might be in the picture or maybe that part of the entire program is not finished yet, that can happen too as it takes a lot of time with massive software systems as such. There has to be a back up system, both with technology and with humans when the crashes show up. It’s not limited to Healthcare either, as look at the markets last week and this is the world of complexities we live in today. We don’t like crashes and can’t predict them but the best thing to do is be ready for one at any time or any place and yes there was probably some additional money spent here that wasn’t planned on either, but again not much one can do there. Not too long ago Sutter created their own HMO as well. BD
Sutter Health Forms New HMO Plan, SignatureValue Alliance and Hires Former OptumInsight (Ingenix-United Healthcare) Executive To Run It
On Aug. 26 at approximately 8 a.m., the Epic EHR system crashed, at which time nurses, physicians and hospital staff had no access to patient information, including what medications patients were taking or required to take and all vital patient history data, according to reports from the California Nurses Association, part of National Nurses United, the largest nurses union in the U.S.
Days earlier, the EHR system was also down for eight hours due to a planned upgrade; nurses could still read medication orders and patient histories but had to record new data on paper to then be re-entered into the system later.
Gleeson explained that the California Nurses Association continues to oppose the use of health information technology and ultimately misrepresented the situation. "It comes as no surprise given the fact that we are in a protracted labor dispute with CNA," he said.
Kevin Sweat, an emergency room RN at Eden Medical Center, a Sutter affiliate, however, said the blackout is a legitimate issue, explaining that in his 12 years as an RN he has never seen a system fail like this.
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/setback-sutter-after-1b-ehr-system%20crashes
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