The San Francisco Giants celebrated their World Series win in the City by the Bay yesterday. Some estimates put the crowds who welcomed their heroes in a ticker tape parade at one million people. So what does this sporting news have to do with EHRs?
Bear with me for a few moments. As far as I know, there were no medical emergencies along the parade path. I'm not sure an ambulance could get through the mass of people on the streets. After the parade ended at Civic Center, where the players were feted by the mayor of San Francisco and even Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, people began to disperse. Waves pushed toward Civic Center, and my family and friends decided we couldn't go against the movement, seriously.
We decided to leave via the Civic Center BART station, the Bay Area Rapid Transit, to catch a train back to the East Bay. It was chaotic, at times tense, and packed. As we stood waiting to make our way down the stairs, I looked around me and thought, I hope we don't have an earthquake right now.
I thought about what the emergency rooms at all the city hospitals would look like. How many of them have EHR systems? What are their redundancy and back-up plans if they do have EHR systems? Earlier, during the parade, I talked with some nearby fans who had traveled a great distance to congratulate their beloved team. There were a lot of geriatric but nonetheless energetic fans who no doubt have been lifelong fans and now finally tasted victory. In an emergency, far from home, would physicians be able to treat them with confidence if they could access their medication lists? Would they be able to treat hundreds of patients - as would be the case in the event of a catastrophe like an earthquake - more efficiently if they had an EHR system?
In the crowded stairway, I overheard one man say he was glad he doesn't live in San Francisco because it was earthquake country. He was thinking the same thing I was. In my case, I was thinking about the capabilities of local hospitals to treat so many patients in a high-quality, safe, efficient manner. I don't know when there will be an event as big as there was for the Giants ticker tape parade and if I'll be in this situation again, but I sure hope that all the hospitals and clinics are equipped with EHR systems.
Photo by Nicole Abalde via Creative Commons license.
