After a systemwide computer network outage hit Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health May 14, two nurses at Sacramento-based Sutter Medical Center claim some patients were admitted May 15, after the outage, despite the hospital not having critical patient information, according to The Sacramento Bee.
In response to the outage, Sutter CEO Sarah Krevans praised the patience, commitment and thoroughness of Sutter Health employees in a video message, saying, "all of this helped to ensure the continuity of high-quality, safe patient care."
"We will be reviewing every aspect of this event and taking seriously every recommendation for improvement," Ms. Krevans said. "I also want to hear from all of you. I want to know what happened where you work."
Two Sutter Medical Center nurses spoke with the Bee anonymously out of fear of reprisal from their employer. The nurses expressed concerns about some patients being admitted for elective surgeries after the network outage despite issues with hospital resources and important patient information.
For example, the surgical team needs computer access to a patient's history and proof of physical completed within the last 30 days to receive physician certification on the date of surgery, a surgical nurse told the Bee. Although patients arrived for surgeries with their histories and physicals on paper, the papers failed to include the physician's certification that the patient's condition had not changed before the surgery date, the nurse said.
The medical team relies on those documents if something goes wrong during a surgery. "Other Sutter hospitals canceled elective surgeries," the nurse said. "Why did Sutter Medical Center feel like they needed to do elective surgeries?"
In response to this issue, Rick Harrell, Sutter Medical Center assistant administrator for surgical services told the Bee the facility stopped accepting patients in all units at some point May 15 until the staff could confirm whether they could safely care for patients admitted to the hospital.
Administrators relied on nurses in each department to determine whether they could admit more patients, Mr. Harrell said. Even in routine situations, management will check in with surgeons to assess whether procedures can continue as scheduled, Mr. Harrell said. The hospital conducted that same evaluation with surgeons as they looked at 50 or so elective surgeries scheduled May 15, he said.
Surgeons said they felt comfortable with the information they had to go ahead with all but 12 procedures, Mr. Harrell said. While nurses may have been unable to find documents, staff obtained all the necessary approvals from physicians prior to the elective surgeries, he said.
"We test for disaster internally, including our information systems, as well as we do it with other hospitals regionally, with the EMS employees, etc., " Mr. Harrell said. "We're prepared to support the community safely 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."