Every Thursday night at 9pm EST, I tune into the latest episode of The Pitt on HBO . The Pitt is the most realistic medical show (from my perspective) in my 25 years as a nurse and healthcare professional. As you watch, you almost forget that Dr. Robbie is really Noah Wyle, an actor, instead of the Chief ER (Emergency Room) Attending MD of your hospital.

In last week’s episode, The Pitt is under a potential ransomware cyberattack. As a preventative measure, the IT systems are all shut down within seconds of the ER staff hearing about this unplanned downtime.

You see Dr. Robbie announce to the ER staff, “We’re going old school… analog.” Below is a 55 second clip of that part of the episode.

As I watched that episode, it brought back memories of the exact opposite: transitioning from paper to computers.

Now, many of you reading this may have never worked directly from paper based medical records. However, that was the standard of practice for decades up until the 2000’s when there was an effort to digitize patient records across the United States.

Due to the complexity, cost, resources, and several other factors, federal incentives were needed to move the digital health needle forward. This occurred through the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act and the EHR (Electronic Health Record) Incentive Program.

Yet, such transitions from paper to digital platforms were less than easy to do. Additionally, many were just as hesitant to digitize as they are in this clip to turn to paper based records. Significant training and preparation (after years of development efforts) was necessary for each healthcare professional that needed to interact with the new form of a patient chart.

Now, we see this sense of fear in the staff of The Pitt on how to effectively care for their patients without any significant warning that the systems would be offline. [This is called an unplanned downtime… the name alone should tell you that no one favors these offline breaks].

Imagine what that would be like to have no data on any of the patients if all of it is digitized… you would feel a myriad of emotions as many depicted in the clip above. However, there are downtime plans that are created for just these types of situations. Additionally, IT teams are behind the scenes working to bring the system up as quickly as possible.

Hours and hours between many meetings and discussions review how to support staff in clinical care situations when an unplanned downtime occurs. As a result, you do not need to have someone on shift like Dr. Joy with a photographic memory to recall all of the details on the digital board. Instead, you need to know the procedures to gain access to the downtime reports.

Whether health records are digital or paper based, this episode depicts how essential access to patient data and information is in order to effectively provide patient care.

~ Dr. Kelley