Aimee Pellegrini, ITS disaster recovery coordinator, far right, and Armando Naranjo, ITS production control analyst, far left, worked with staff in the Saint Raphael Campus PACU, including (l-r): Derphys Sanchez, RN; Karen Gray, unit associate; Danae Marquis, RN; and Daniela Signorello, RN.  

Epic downtime drills ensure units are ready 

Staff with Information Technology Services’ Disaster Recovery, Yale New Haven Hospital’s Disaster Preparedness and Response and the Office of Emergency Preparedness recently dropped in on Saint Raphael Campus patient care units to conduct Epic downtime drills for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began. 

Three groups of Epic downtime experts assessed units’ readiness and offered on-the-spot training for dealing with an outage due to a cyberattack or other event. Disaster recovery coordinator Aimee Pellegrini said the drills are extremely useful because they help identify departments that could benefit from additional drills, training or discussions on downtime preparedness. They also help staff identify issues that can be corrected before an outage, such as downtime computers that don’t meet ITS’ “gold standard” for functionality. Some common issues are downtime PCs that have been unplugged from a red generator plug, moved without ITS’ knowledge and/or are missing important components.