Staff at many hospitals in Queensland have to resort to pen and paper after a technical glitch left them stranded without access to the medical record system for hours.
On Nov. 22, an outage occurred to the state’s integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) system in the early morning, making it impossible for medical staff to log in and access digital patient records.
The ieMR system is designed to allow healthcare professionals to simultaneously access and update patient information, including vital signs, in real time to improve the safety, efficiency and quality of clinical workflow processes.
Due to the outage, staff at affected hospitals had to use pen and paper to process patients’ information.
“Where healthcare workers cannot log in, well-practised alternative paper-based processes are in place.”
It was not until late afternoon on that day that the technical issue was resolved, restoring the log-in function of the ieMR system.
Queensland Health later said backup systems at hospitals had “operated well” and that the department was not aware of any safety issues with patients due to the outage.
“A post-incident review analysis to understand the cause of the issue, and steps to prevent it occurring again in the future, will take place over coming days.”
Opposition Criticises Queensland Government
Following the outage, Opposition spokesperson Ros Bates said Queensland Health Minister Shannon Fentiman was hit with another “embarrassing bungle” after ambulance delays resulted in the death of two patients just a few days earlier.It was revealed that the woman dialled triple zero (the emergency number) the previous evening after suffering chest pain, but the ambulance never arrived.
The man was not transferred to an emergency room despite the paramedics escalating his condition several times.
The state government has launched a clinical review into the incident.
“The health minister today must explain how Queensland’s digital medical records system could experience such a catastrophic failure, putting as health workers say, patient safety at risk,” Ms Bates said.
“Hospitals across the state have spent most of today unable to access the digital patient records needed to keep them safe.
“Queenslanders deserve answers and the buck stops with Shannon Fentiman.”
Meanwhile, Australian Medical Association Queensland president Maria Boulton defended the state’s healthcare system after the two deaths.
While expressing condolence to the dead patients’ families, the president said the whole system was under strain and that it was only a matter of time before such tragedies occurred.
“We know that our healthcare workers do the best they can in a system that is completely broken, and this is not on them, but it also affects them because they don’t want to lose any lives.
“They’re doing the best they possibly can in a system that’s providing very little support for the healthcare workers and the families that are involved.”
Ms. Boulton said the Queensland government needed to step up with more funding to resolve the lack of hospital beds and medical staff shortages in the state.
