I recently read an article about a keynote who predicted 80% of hospitals will fail stage 2 attestation.*  There are obviously many factors that con contribute to such a failure but I am passionate that the educational efforts for our implementations are partly to blame for missed goals.  You see, unfortunately training is often an afterthought to our implementations. 

Reason one:  Analysts are usually tasked with creating the education for the systems they have built.  After all, who knows the system better than those who built it? Unfortunately, the system must be built and tested before analysts can turn their attention to the education piece.  With last minute changes and fixes, it is just hard to get everything done let alone focus on…

“I’m sorry, our system is down.” -  One sentence that makes any CIO’s blood pressure skyrocket. Today hospital staffs have been trained to use systems and rely on electronics for just about everything they need to do to get their job done. But what happens when those systems go down?

Whether your HIS vendor system or network goes down due to unforeseen reasons, or due to planned maintenance, having a downtime plan is imperative. Leaving patients and staff confused, stressed, unhappy and uncoordinated is unacceptable. Obviously these situations are unavoidable, but there are ways to make them more manageable.

Hospitals need to adopt a robust technology that will keep information available and easily accessible for hospital staff. Without…