Contra Costa's $45 Million [EPIC] Computer Health Care System Endangering Lives, Nurses Say

Contra Costa's new correctional medical computer system recommended what could have been a fatal dose of a West County jail inmate's heart medication last week, a detention nurse said Tuesday, calling it one of many recent close calls with the month-old program. Fortunately, the inmate's nurse was familiar with his medical history, recognized the discrepancy and administered the correct amount of Digoxin.

It's just one of a number of computer errors that medical staffers say are endangering inmates, medical staff and sheriff's deputies at the county's five jail facilities since Contra Costa switched on July 1 to EPIC, a computer system that links the correctional facilities to the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and other county health care operations, two nurses and their union representative told the Contra Costa County board of supervisors on Tuesday.

"It's dangerous. It's very dangerous," said an emotional Lee Ann Fagan in a phone interview. The registered nurse works at West County Detention Facility in Richmond. "It's hard to work in an environment that's so frustrating. "What nurses want is for the EPIC program to go away until it's fixed," she said...