Network Glitch Brings Down Epic EMR

Hardware failure, not EMR, to blame, officials say

An IT network failure at a Florida health system has rendered the organization's $80 million Epic electronic medical record system down for the count. The outage, officials reported, lasted nearly two days. 
 
The three-hospital Martin Health System in Stuart, Fla., experienced a hardware failure that caused an unplanned downtime for the health system's Epic EMR and several other business applications. Thirteen MHS facilities were impacted by the outage. 
 
The network went down Wednesday evening, and the IT department reported Friday morning the issue had been resolved, according to officials.   
 
"While our EMR was affected by the hardware failure, it was not the genesis of the problem," said MHS spokesperson Scott Samples, in an emailed statement to Healthcare IT News.