Key Takeaways
- The latest IT outage in southern hospitals impacted the hospital administration system across the South Island, affecting access to patient health records.
- The outage was not related to previous outages or a cybersecurity incident, according to Health New Zealand.
- Patient care continued safely throughout the outage, with manual processes in place to keep services running.
- Health New Zealand is undergoing a debrief to identify the cause and extent of the outage, and to find ways to improve its systems.
- The outage is the latest in a series of IT outages to impact hospitals in New Zealand this month, including a previous outage that lasted for over 12 hours.
Introduction to the Outage
The southern hospitals in New Zealand have been affected by another IT outage, which impacted the hospital administration system across the South Island. This outage is the latest in a series of outages that have affected hospitals on both islands this month. The outage occurred on Wednesday and lasted for several hours, affecting access to patient health records. Despite the outage, patient care continued safely throughout, with manual processes in place to keep services running.
Impact of the Outage
The outage had a significant impact on the hospital staff, who were unable to access real-time data and had to rely on paper forms. A Health New Zealand employee, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed frustration at the lack of communication and follow-up regarding the outage. The employee stated that they were left in the dark about what happened and that no one seemed to be concerned about the impact on staff and patients or the clinical risk. The outage alert, which was seen by RNZ, instructed clinicians to use "offline downtime forms" due to issues with the patient care system, including error messages and delays.
Cause of the Outage
According to Health New Zealand, the outage was not related to previous outages or a cybersecurity incident. Kirsty Martin, the regional digital director for HNZ Te Waipounamu, stated that the system holds a record of the patient journey through the hospital and passes information to downstream applications, which were temporarily impacted. Martin also stated that normal business continuity plans were enacted during the incident, which included manual processes to keep services running safely, while digital staff worked with vendors to fix the issue.
Response to the Outage
Health New Zealand is undergoing a debrief to identify the cause and extent of the outage, and to find ways to improve its systems. The debrief will help to determine what went wrong and how to prevent similar outages in the future. In the meantime, the hospital staff has been able to continue providing patient care safely, despite the challenges posed by the outage. The use of manual processes, such as paper forms, has helped to minimize the disruption caused by the outage.
Previous Outages
This is not the first IT outage to affect hospitals in New Zealand this month. A previous outage, which lasted for over 12 hours, impacted South Island clinicians’ access to patient records, including medication and lab results. The frequent outages have raised concerns about the reliability of the IT systems used by hospitals in New Zealand. The outages have also highlighted the importance of having robust backup systems in place to ensure that patient care can continue safely in the event of an outage.
Conclusion
The latest IT outage in southern hospitals has highlighted the need for reliable and robust IT systems in healthcare. The outage, which affected access to patient health records, has also raised concerns about the impact on patient care and the clinical risk. Despite the challenges posed by the outage, hospital staff has been able to continue providing patient care safely, thanks to manual processes and backup systems. Health New Zealand’s debrief and efforts to improve its systems will help to prevent similar outages in the future and ensure that patient care can continue uninterrupted.
