Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital says it has identified and modified a flaw in the way the physician and nursing portions of its electronic health records system interact.

A critical flaw in the electronic health record system at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital prevented emergency room physicians from knowing that Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan had been in Africa prior to becoming ill, the hospital revealed Thursday night.





Although a nurse's note in the EHR noted that Duncan had recently travelled from Africa, he was sent home after seeking medical help on Sept. 25, the hospital said in a media statement.

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"Protocols were followed by both the physician and the nurses. However, we have identified a flaw in the way the physician and nursing portions of our electronic health records (EHR) interacted in this specific case. In our electronic health records, there are separate physician and nursing workflows," the statement said.

"The documentation of the travel history was located in the nursing workflow portion of the EHR, and was designed to provide a high reliability nursing process to allow for the administration of influenza vaccine under a physician-delegated standing order," the statement said.