Prepare for the Next Network or System Outage: Ensure Continuity of Patient Care
Healthcare practices rely heavily on electronic systems for managing patient care, scheduling, documentation, prescriptions, referrals, billing, and communication. Unexpected outages—whether caused by cyberattacks, natural disasters, software errors, or network failures—can have a drastic impact on patient care and business operations. Because of this, having a comprehensive plan to respond to downtime is essential. This plan is known as your downtime contingency plan.
Why Planning for Outages Matters
The goal of risk analysis and risk mitigation isn’t to predict every possible incident. Rather, it is to create an environment where adverse events are less likely to occur and, if they do occur, they do not severely disrupt patient care or practice operations. Unexpected Electronic Health Record (EHR) and network outages can leave providers without access to critical data needed for treatment decisions, contact information, and appointment schedules, potentially compromising care and increasing costs.
Recently, Verizon experienced a widespread network outage that left hundreds of thousands of wireless customers with no voice or data service and phones displaying only “SOS” status, indicating inability to connect normally to the network. The outage affected major cities including New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles and disrupted routine connectivity for several hours. Emergency communications capabilities were even impacted in some areas, highlighting the real-world consequences when communication infrastructure fails. AP News
The Cost of Downtime in Healthcare
Studies demonstrate that unplanned system outages are not only disruptive but also expensive. Downtime can cost healthcare organizations tens of thousands of dollars per hour due to lost productivity, delayed care, and operational inefficiencies. More importantly, prolonged outages can jeopardize patient safety, particularly when providers cannot access medical records or communicate with patients and emergency services.
Key Elements of Downtime Preparedness
A thorough risk analysis helps practices identify and document which safeguards are in place and where vulnerabilities exist if power or systems fail. Essential elements to evaluate and prepare for include:
- Backup Power Solutions: Determine whether the practice has backup generators or uninterruptible power supplies (battery backups) for critical systems, so that equipment continues to function during electrical outages.
- Emergency Lighting: Ensure emergency lights with battery backup are installed so staff and patients can move safely during power loss.
- Redundant Internet Connectivity: Include secondary methods for maintaining connectivity—such as mobile phone hotspots or standalone cellular internet plans—so critical systems remain accessible when primary internet service fails.
- Communication Continuity: Connect the practice phone system to a battery backup or configure call forwarding to an alternate active phone to maintain communication with patients during outages.
- Paper Forms: When electronic medical records are not available, all patient documentation needs to be captured on paper so that all care information can be entered to the EMR when the systems come back online.
By documenting these measures in your risk analysis and mitigation plans, the practice is better positioned to maintain operations during disruptions, safeguard patient data, and demonstrate proactive planning to auditors and regulators.
Protecting Patient Care and Compliance
Healthcare providers must be able to access and document patient information accurately, even when systems are down. Manual workarounds without preparation can lead to transcription errors, incomplete records, and compromised clinical decisions. Having contingency plans—such as secure paper records access, offline documentation procedures, and communication protocols—helps preserve patient safety and data integrity.
Beyond operational continuity, the HIPAA Security Rule require covered entities to maintain disaster recovery and emergency mode operation plans in their HIPAA Security Manual.
Conclusion
Unplanned outages—from local internet service disruptions to widespread network failures—are not a question of if but when. A practice that prepares in advance with robust redundancy plans, backup power, alternate connectivity, and clear downtime procedures will be far better equipped to continue providing safe, effective care. Being caught unprepared can lead to operational chaos, compromised patient care, adverse financial impact, and unnecessary risk.
Prepare now. Build redundancy. Document your plans.
Your patients rely on you to be ready for the next outage, wherever it may come from. Partner with TLD Systems to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis and develop a practical risk mitigation plan and HIPAA Security Manual—giving your practice the regulatory support, operational resilience, and continuity of care framework needed to remain compliant and continue serving patients without interruption
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