Contingency planning for electronic health record–based care continuity: a survey of recommended practices.

As institutions continue to transition to electronic medical records (EMRs), they will need contingency plans to ensure patient safety in the event of system failures. This survey of 50 institutions with fully integrated EMRs found that nearly all had experienced unexpected failures—70% of which resulted in EMR unavailability for more than 8 hours—in the past 3 years, but most had only partly implemented comprehensive safety plans to avoid patient harm during these instances.