Posted October 17, 20222 yr comment_84260 When Meditech 5.67 is experiencing a downtime event, how do you make patient records accessible for techs to perform record checks? The NJ state requirements are - "Before blood is issued for transfusion, test results for each recipient sample shall be compared with the following: 1. Past records of previous ABO and Rh typing results for the past 12 months; and 2. Past records of all patients known to have significant unexpected antibodies; severe adverse reactions to transfusion, and/or difficulty in blood typing." If computers are used, an alternate method shall be available and used which allows access to the information required in above in the case of computer failure. We currently have a separate downtime reporting system that contains the last 5days of lab results for inpatients and the last 2 days of lab results for ED patients. Results are updated every 30 minutes. I keep binders with patient antibody panel workups, transfusion reactions, and abo/rh discrepancy worksheets. Is there a way to download/backup the Meditech BBK history file on to a downtime computer on a weekly/monthly schedule? How do you handle your LIS downtime in this case?
October 18, 20222 yr comment_84265 I download all the patient histories to a desktop file on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week. I also have an encrypted flash drive that I download to and write over the previous data. There is a computer somewhere in the laboratory that is not down that can be used for checking histories.
October 18, 20222 yr comment_84267 Have your LIS person set up the History Backup Client. This will backup all files and then automatically backup any new or edited files every hour. We have ours backed up to our network and a portable hard drive that we can access if the network is also down.
October 18, 20222 yr comment_84268 We do the same as @MAGNUM. Our database is downloaded daily as a background job. It is also downloaded to a network drive so it can be accessed by anyone that has access privilege to the drive from any networked computer.
October 20, 20222 yr comment_84286 We have a database that downloads with or without network connection, all blood bank data 24/7. We also have an "iPeople" link that displays a downtime EMR Viewer icon during Meditech downtime. The downtime EMR viewer shows BBK history and transfusion history.
October 20, 20222 yr Author comment_84292 Thank you everyone. It's a relief to know other facilities are still using this program. I will forward to my IT department and hopefully this is an easy task to accomplish.
October 21, 20222 yr comment_84296 Make sure you have access to patient records with special needs/problems in the event of a malicious hacker. Our entire LIS system has been shut down completely twice because of ransom attacks. No computer access of any kind until IT checked each physical computer individually and combed through all the servers and programs. These are not short-term events. I've discussed with IT backing up records to a computer that is connected to the network only for that backup but haven't completed that project yet. In the meantime, I keep a paper copy of a snapshot report for those patients.
October 21, 20222 yr comment_84297 I keep them 10 years (2 years on site) just to be safe. CAP standards are ambiguous and inspectors have been inconsistent. I feel like our LIS has enough proof but I do not want to argue during inspections.
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