Abstract
We conducted a survey of the aftermath of the Tohoku region pacific coast earthquake on March11, 2011 as it related to the hospital information systems in the disaster area. Sixty six percent (55 hospitals) out of all the hospitals (83) in the survey submitted answers to the questionnaire. Most server systems and network systems were not severely damaged and their databases were protected and maintained with exception of the hospitals located in the tsunami area. However, in 60% of the hospitals, their hospital information systems malfunctioned for several days after the earthquake. These failures of operation were mainly due to the breakdown of the emergency electric supply, a lack of electric supply to air conditioners in server rooms, a lack of electric supply to all the network switch, and a fuel shortage of the emergency electric supply system. The results of this survey showed that environmental arrangement of a hospital information system can help to resume the operation immediately after a disaster. Hospital databases in the tsunami disaster area had been damaged and could not be recovered. Remote back up of databases should be given serious consideration.
