A man with Ebola virus infection in the Dallas area was released from the hospital due to a flaw in an electronic health records system. The system was not able to send the notes from nurses automatically to doctors.
According to a statement by the hospital, the patient told a nurse that he had been in Africa but that information was not automatically included in the electronic records for the doctor to see. The software used by the hospital is made by Epic Systems Corp.
The patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, was being treated in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
According to the hospital, "As designed, the travel history would not automatically appear in the physician's standard work flow." Documentation of the patient's travel history was located in the nursing work flow portion in the hospital notes and was "designed to provide a high reliability nursing process to allow for the administration of influenza vaccine under a physician-delegated standing order."
Epic Systems Corp., based in Wisconsin, is one of the biggest providers of such systems in the United States.The hospital said it will be making upgrades to their system.
The patient first came into the emergency room on the night of September 25. He had a temperature of 100.1 Fahrenheit, abdominal pain for a couple of days, a splitting headache, and decreased urination.
According to the hospital's statement, "These symptoms could be associated with many communicable diseases, as well as many other types of illness. When he was asked whether he had nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea, he said no. Additionally, Mr. Duncan's symptoms were not severe at the time."
Duncan was released early the next morning.
On September 28, Duncan returned via an ambulance and was placed in an isolation unit. Health officials eventually diagnosed him with an Ebola virus infection, which has killed around 4,000 people in West Africa.
