CalMHSA Rx is an EHR software system that is used for accurate and timely ordering of medications. However, even the most reliable systems can experience unexpected downtimes due to technical issues, maintenance, or other unforeseen circumstances. When CalMHSA Rx goes offline, healthcare providers must be prepared to manage medications manually or through alternative processes to ensure patient safety and continuity of care. This article explores common questions and best practices for handling medication management during software downtime, ensuring that healthcare teams can continue delivering high-quality care without disruption.
System Failure: Who Gets Notified
System maintenance / updates to the platform are planned in advance and users will receive email notice from CalMHSA Rx regarding the timeline and release notes.
There could be multiple scenarios of system failures.
- If the CalMHSA Rx User Interface is down, then the providers will not be able to get into CalMHSA Rx screen and it will be treated as an incident and the software incident response team will work for resolution. All information will be communicated from CalMHSA with counties. Any tickets raised by counties will be handled by CalMHSA help desk.
- If the pharmacy routing service in the back end is down, then the prescriptions will be queued to be sent to the pharmacy. Once the prescription/pharmacy routing service is up, the software’s backend services will try to send the prescriptions electronically and if the prescriptions are not electronically delivered, they will be dropped to fa
What Happens to Prescription Orders During the Outage
The prescriptions will be queued, and an attempt will be made to deliver them to pharmacies electronically. In scenarios where the prescriptions are not delivered electronically, they will be dropped to fax.
What Should You Do for Controlled Substances
Prescriptions will drop to fax automatically if the electronic submission is unable to complete, so that’s not something that needs to be done manually. All prescription tracking in terms of medical history will be maintained in the way shown in the screenshot below. (For controlled prescriptions, they will be marked as undeliverable, and the provider has to re-send the prescriptions).
If There is a System Failure, and the Prescription Cannot Be Sent Electronically, Can it Be Faxed
Yes, the prescription will be dropped to fax if it is not electronically delivered.