Question: I have been hearing a gre...

Question: I have been hearing a great deal about the "Year 2000 problem" (Y2K) in the media, and I have seen reports of survivalists preparing for social and economic meltdown. I have not heard anything from my hospital administrators about their plans to deal with this point in dispute Is the sky really going to fall? for what reason will Y2K affect care In the OR? Should we be taking any grades to prepare for possible equipment or patient care problems? for what reason concerned should we be?

Answer: The denominations Y2K, the year 2000 moot point or the millennium bug, are all allusions to the trouble caused when date-sensitive software and computer chips fail to recognize the year 2000 When mainframe computer a whole s were designed in the 1960 and 1970 space was limited. Programmers condens four-digit date fields into sum of two units digits. For example, 1971 became 71 When the year 2000 arrives, computer with two-digit fields will assume that it is 1900 and all sorts of mayhem could proceed Problems ranging from bad calculations to computer simply shutting down may occur

When programmers first began correcting the question some critical pieces were overseeed Biomedical equipment, phone systems, elevators, and on a level air conditioning systems now have computer chips embedded in them and may be date sensitive. Date-related enigmas could affect not only medical records, billing, and fax machines, if it were not that also critical medical devices (eg infusion cross-examines monitors, sterilizers, radiology equipment).

Converting a two-digit date field to a four-digit format may hearty simple, but it is actually quite complicated. Dates may appear in a facility's computer and medical devices thousands of times. Custom programs have to be reviewed, line from line. Software applications must be criterioned and if they do not work, the vendor must be called in to correct the point in dispute Medical devices must be exhibitioned and bad chips replaced. Anything that is plugg into a wall will ne to be checked and tested(1)

Many hospitals have created multidisciplinary task forces to address the issue and to minimize the risk of massive failure of their information a whole s and equipment. Smaller health care facilities may not be aware of the potential seriousness of the question may not have the financial resources or personnel necessary to deal with the point in dispute may have procrastinated, or may be hoping that the question simply goes away. In any end the Y2K medical device question at issue should be taken seriously.

If your facility has not begun to prepare for Y2K it is time to start. Consultants have warned that hospitals ne two-and-one-half years to "debug" all their arrangements Problems could occur as presently as Jan 1, 1999. According to Joel Ackerman, executive director of Rx2000 Solutions Institute, a nonprofit organization created to help the health care industry prepare for the year 2000 a mini-year 2000 puzzle exists because in programming, the number 99 is oftentimes used to indicate something special. If a programmer did not know a date moreover had to put one in, all nines may have been used to indicate "forever."(2)

There is not enough time remaining for a facility to begin a drawn out strategic planning process, but there are a certain number of key shortcuts that can be taken. Assign someone responsibility and authority for Y2K compliance. Create a multidisciplinary team (eg information connected view technical people, facility engineers, biomedical engineers, supply with nourishments physicians, legal council, business partners, suppliers). Decide which arrangements and equipment are critical to operations and patient safety. Materials management or scheduling combination of parts to form a wholes may be important, but if they crash, a facility can turn back to a manual system. examine on the Internet. Many manufacturers station Y2K compliance details on their abode pages, and several Internet forums and clearing houses are now available.(3)

The critical pertain to facing perioperative nurses is that if medical devices, record-keeping methods and any other electronic device that contains a computer chip fails, there must be a contingency plan in place to deal with the weights of the breakdown. The American suckles Association (ANA) suggests that festers ask the following list of questions. Has your employer or hospital

* created an interdisciplinary team to address potential Y2K problems;

* educated staff members about potential Y2K general intents and enlisted their help in identifying date-sensitive devices;

* reviewed existing inventory to prioritize Y2K high-risk equipment and systems;

* experimented and determined equipment reliability based forward priority;

* obtained manufacturers' assurances of Y2K reliability for their products;

* secur external vendors' assurance of Y2K reliability for their services;

* replaced or fixed software and hardware; and

* disentangleed emergency Y2K failure plans?(4)

To read the ANA coverage of the Y2K issue in The American feed and to view the Y2K resource list ANA has compiled forward its home page, Nursing World, make progress to www.nursingworld.org/y2k.

When Dec 31 1999 whirls around, the sky will not fall, and everything in your OR will not fail. however it is prudent to begin working now with your facility administration to disclose a deliberate process for Y2K review and contingency planning.