Printable hospital template
Hospital downtime drill and recovery record
Plan a controlled hospital software downtime exercise, observe what continues, and check recovery and reconciliation before closing the drill.
- Written by
- RizCare
- Published
- Last reviewed
RizCare's suggested worksheet. Adapt to your hospital. https://riz.care/library/templates/clinic-downtime-drill-record
For practice managers and staff responsible for continuity arrangements.
Choose one interruption to rehearse on an approved training setup. Record what the team attempted and what the device actually showed. A general statement that work continues cannot tell the hospital whether a particular record was available or whether saved work reached the next colleague.
Nigerian hospitals may plan for power and connectivity interruptions, but those failures are different. An internet-only drill does not demonstrate operation with a flat battery, a lost device or an unavailable server. Run the exercise in an approved training setting with fictional data and a clear stop rule.
Print this page or save it as a PDF from your browser. The print layout contains only the blank worksheet and its completion note. Fill it in within your hospital.
Practice: ____________________ Prepared by: ____________________ Date: ______________
| Check | Expected | Observed | Follow-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blank entry | |||
| Blank entry | |||
| Blank entry | |||
| Blank entry |
Keep completed copies with the staff authorised to use them.
How to use it
Define the scenario and safe boundary
Name the device, accounts, connection and services involved. List the tasks to try, the person observing and the condition that ends the exercise immediately. Arrange the hospital's approved fallback before starting. Do not interrupt real patient care, disconnect live systems or delete browser data simply to see what happens. Record what remains available during the scenario.
Observe the task and its actual state
Follow the agreed exercise and write what each staff member can complete, what is blocked and where unfinished work remains. Distinguish a saved entry on the training device from confirmation elsewhere. Do not describe all software as offline capable because one previously opened screen still displays. Record error messages without copying patient details, credentials or other sensitive material.
Restore the condition and reconcile
After the planned interruption ends, check each fictional entry against its expected destination and original reference. Look for missing, repeated and unresolved work. Restore the approved training setup and assign every gap to an owner. Close the drill only after the observer has documented what recovered and what still needs investigation.
The Nigerian case study discusses technical conditions and sustainability in a public primary-care implementation. It motivates planning for local conditions but does not establish any vendor's outage behaviour; this exercise must produce its own observations.
What each field means
- Scenario and exclusions
- State exactly what is unavailable and what still works. Record a charged device, previously opened application or connected colleague as an assumption if the exercise depends on it.
- Expected and observed result
- Write the expected state before the attempt and the actual result afterwards. Do not change the expectation retrospectively so the exercise appears to pass.
- Recovery evidence
- Use the original fictional record references to check recovery. A connection indicator becoming green is not evidence that each pending item arrived correctly.
- Gap and owner
- Describe the remaining failure, temporary working arrangement and next action. Do not mark a drill complete while an unexplained duplicate or missing item remains unassigned.
Completed fictional example
This is a fictional drill, not a test report for RizCare or another product. It illustrates why an unresolved recovery item keeps the exercise open.
| Check | Expected | Observed | Follow-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Training device loses internet | Chosen local task can be completed | Entry DR-01 saved on device; remote confirmation pending | Observer A records pending state |
| Connection returns | Original entry becomes visible at agreed destination once | DR-01 confirmed once; DR-02 still unresolved | Owner B investigates DR-02 |
| Drill close | All fictional entries reconciled | Unmet | Keep drill open until DR-02 resolved |
Related resources
Sources and review
The worksheet design and examples are RizCare's recommendations. The sources below support the background discussion; they do not endorse this form.
- Implementing Electronic Health Records in Primary Care Using the Theory of Change: Nigerian Case Study (JMIR Medical Informatics). Read 9 September 2026.