The Hidden Cost of EHR Downtime

Understanding the Impact and Mitigation Strategies

Electronic health records (EHR) were designed to store patient records, but their downtime can be catastrophic for hospitals. EHR downtime refers to periods when the system is wholly or partially unavailable, disrupting operations and posing risks to patients and staff. With the increased adoption of EHRs and other digital tools, the risk of downtime has grown, highlighting the need for enhanced communication systems driven by interoperable technologies.

Understanding Hospital EHR Downtime Disruptions

Unplanned downtimes in today’s digital healthcare setting can severely impact patient safety, reputation, customer service, and trust. These downtimes can be caused by natural disasters, power outages, unstable network connectivity, human error, or cybersecurity breaches. Regardless of the cause, the result is a costly and stressful interruption of critical services.

The average cost of downtime for hospitals is $7,900 per minute, putting these entities at risk of exposing sensitive data, losing revenue, and facing hefty fines for HIPAA noncompliance. Hospitals require constant monitoring and management to ensure smooth operations and optimal patient care.

Unexpected downtime events can result in serious patient safety risks since EHR functionality and critical patient information become unavailable for effective care delivery.

The Impact of EHR Downtime 

1. Financial Impact: During unplanned downtimes, healthcare facilities typically lose an average of $208,600 in direct revenue due to canceled or rescheduled appointments, stopping new patient intake, and transferring high-risk patients to other hospitals.
2. Delays in Care: A study at two U.S. hospitals found that lab test results were delayed by about 62% during unexpected downtimes. Delays in patient care can endanger patients or even result in loss of life, making cohesive communication and backup records crucial during outages.
3. Patient Privacy: Ransomware attacks can prevent access to EHRs and patient records for hours, days, or even weeks. With rising cybersecurity threats, hospitals must have measures in place to mitigate risks to private patient data.
4. Regulatory/Compliance Issues: Compromised patient data leads to HIPAA and service-level agreement violations, with fines of up to $50,000 for each violation.
5. Reputation and Referrals: EHR downtime delays patient care, leading to longer wait times and decreased patient satisfaction. This can lower HCAHPS scores and create negative word of mouth, affecting hospital traffic and requiring extensive marketing efforts to regain trust.
6. Staff Productivity: System failures disrupt daily tasks and diminish productivity, costing approximately $138,200 in lost end-user productivity per downtime episode.

How Modern Technology Mitigates the Effects of EHR Downtime

Even if the EHR is down, communication within healthcare systems must continue to ensure patient safety. Leveraging a secure, HIPAA-compliant communication solution that integrates with the EHR can mitigate the effects of downtime. Not having the right technology to handle communication during unexpected downtime is a costly risk no health system should take.

A platform like TigerConnect, with 99.995% uptime, ensures that care teams and support staff have a reliable solution to support their workflows and maintain communication during EHR downtime. TigerConnect Clinical Collaboration enhances collaboration, prioritizes patient data security, streamlines operational processes, and expedites response times, ensuring that unplanned outages are handled professionally without shuttering operations.

Learn more about Clinical Collaboration Software Platform, Resident Scheduling Software, Physician Scheduling Software, Alarm Management Software & Patient Engagement Software.