NursingCenter Blog

Keeping Up During Downtime

Jul 23 2024 by Lisa Bonsall, MSN, RN, CRNP, CCRN

The CrowdStrike software update on July 18, 2024, had far-reaching impacts. As a cybersecurity company, many industries – from corporations and financial institutions to airlines and healthcare organizations – rely on CrowdStrike to keep their data safe. When an update was pushed to Windows that morning, millions of computers showed the "blue screen of death."

Within medical practices, hospitals, and healthcare systems, care delivery was disrupted. Clinicians and staff didn’t have access to information technology systems, including electronic medical records. For patients, appointments and elective procedures were cancelled or postponed, and some outpatient facilities were forced to close.

As a nurse for over thirty years, I remember very well the days of paper orders, flowsheets, and charts. But those are a thing of the past in most institutions. How was care impacted and what was learned? I asked several colleagues who were working in acute care that day for their experiences and advice. Here are some of their replies:

“I keep note templates on our desktop on a MS Word document for writing progress notes, H&Ps, incidental notes, etc. I also hoard some manual order sheets in my locker as someone always seems to move them thinking ‘we never use these.’"

“I worked Friday and it was a very odd and frustrating day. All of our elective procedures were cancelled. When I was rounding on patients, I had to write progress notes and orders. Overall, it was very chaotic…I would recommend that upper management teams develop solid downtime procedures with fine tuning by lower management for individual departments as needed. These policies and procedures should be reviewed annually to keep them current and practical. Finally, I would like to see downtime procedures reviewed by all staff in our annual educational curriculum.”

“One thing I took away and mentioned to the bedside nurses is to essentially not let the patients see the ‘uneasiness.’ There was so much chatter at the nurses’ station in front of family members. I think it's just so important that when things happen, we have to show family and patients we don't need a computer to deliver exceptional care and do our best to ease their anxiety.”

Were you working during the outage? Please share your thoughts, advice, and any take-aways from the experience!