Strategies in electronic medical record downtime planning: A scoping study

PURPOSE: This review will identify dominant themes, common to published articles that discuss downtime planning in a clinical setting. These common themes will represent key considerations for healthcare organizations' comprehensive downtime plans. METHOD: A scoping study was performed using search results from PubMed, CINAHL and Medline. The 4 articles meeting the inclusion criteria were analyzed for common themes and findings. RESULTS: Four common themes were found in the included articles: 1) Communications plans, 2) Procedure review and revision, 3) Managing system availability and 4) Preparing staff for handling incidents. CONCLUSION: Organizations must have comprehensive downtime plans available to ensure continuity of patient care during the periods of limited availability. A comprehensive downtime plan that includes these four strategies can become the framework for a set of organizational procedures that ensures the best possible access to vital patient information before, during, and after a downtime event. © 2019 American Psychological Association Inc. All rights reserved.