Q&A with Lorraine Nichols of Alice Peck Day
VSM: Many hospitals have been adopting the latest technologies, including back-end software and technology gadgets. Why is it important for hospitals to take advantage of today’s technology?
LN: Hospitals need to be ready to treat patients at any time of the day, any day of the week. With so many hospitals reliant on technology such as electronic medical records, computers, tablets and more, it has become essential that this technology is working 24/7. In order to assure that the necessary equipment and records stay up and running continuously, hospitals need to implement the proper back-end technology. In short, safety and treatment aren’t just reliant on the attending physician – it’s also reliant on the IT infrastructure that’s in place.
VSM: Your hospital recently invested in continuous uptime assurance software – why did you decide to do this?
LN: Alice Peck Day serves 20 communities in two states, offering primary care, independent and assisted living, and specialty services from rehabilitative care to neurosurgery. Our medical staff, area clinics, and service offerings are growing, which bolsters our ability to invest in new programs, infrastructure and technology. We recognized how important it is to have continuous uptime assurance software in order to ensure patient records are accessible at all times, and to avoid outages and downtime, which would cause a major setback in any hospital and risk the health and safety of its patients.
VSM: What difference does this technology make for your patients? How are they benefited and/or protected better than they were before?
LN: When patients walk into a hospital, they expect to be treated – especially people with serious or life-threatening injuries and/or conditions. No one wants – or expects – to hear that a hospital can’t treat them because of a technology-related outage or problem. Additionally, doctors have remote access to patient records during off-hours, so that in the event of an emergency, they can consult with the attending physician. With continuous uptime assurance software, Alice Peck Day is there for its patients every second of every day, able to help them at whatever critical moment they need us. Patients have peace of mind knowing technology downtime won’t get in the way of their care.
VSM: What software did you install – and how did you choose it?
LN: Alice Peck Day is committed to including IT and data center improvements in our strategic growth plans, and we’ve been using hospital information system software for 14 years. As we began evaluating and testing new EMR software, we became concerned the current virtual infrastructure would not provide sufficient protection against downtime. Because IT staff is not available 24/7, we wanted the system to be as automated as possible for business continuity with virtually no interaction on their part. The inability to keep EMR operations running should a catastrophic event occur also weighed in our minds.
