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Health still does not know the reason why the hospital's main IT system and its emergency back-up both failed in a “critical incident” last week – but the problem appears to be its own struggling infrastructure.
The incident left some hospital wards with no working computers on Friday 23 February, while the Emergency Department was forced to use a makeshift whiteboard to track patient locations. Other health facilities were also affected.
Chief Information Officer Jason Whitfield said a detailed report would be submitted because of the seriousness of the incident, which forced the Hospital to cancel 34 procedures.
Mr Whitfield explained that the problem occurred when a routine software update from a third-party provider – one of between 200 and 300 such updates annually – was being installed.
Pictured: Earlier this week, Health staff told Express that the situation was "really unsafe", "high risk" and "chaos".
Chris Bown, Interim Chief Officer for Health and Community Services, added that “IT system engineers have a high level of confidence that this is not a cyber-related incident".
As users tried to log in on Friday morning, they could not access the system, prompting a flood of calls for help. It was, Mr Whitfield said, “an effect like the power had been switched off”.
The incident triggered a “priority one red alert”, prompting a switch to the back-up server but when that failed to resolve the problem, the incident was escalated to “critical”.
Health staff told Express that the situation was "really unsafe", "high risk" and "chaos".
Several individuals said it posed a threat to patient life and safety, and that there should be an urgent investigation into something they felt should never have happened – and should not happen again.
Pictured: Staff working in the Emergency Department on Friday reported a number of patients waiting for beds.
Speaking at a Health and Community Services Advisory Board meeting, Mr Whitfield said that they still did not know why the problem had occurred because the computer update which prompted the issue had been successfully installed in a number of other systems elsewhere.
“It is something special about our technical environment. We do not know the root cause,” Mr Whitfield said, adding that the one positive to emerge from the episode was that business continuity measures had been tested and found to be successful.
One senior Health official described last Friday as “already a difficult day” for the Hospital because demand for beds was outstripping supply.
Health staff said that a make-shift whiteboard had to be put up in A&E to show patient locations, as there was no other way to know without the IT system.
As a result of the IT failure hospital staff had to implement special measures to dispense medicines as patient data and emails became inaccessible.
All procedures have since been rescheduled, it has been confirmed.
Pictured: Chris Bown, Interim Chief Officer for Health and Community Services, said that "IT system engineers have a high level of confidence that this is not a cyber-related incident".
Chief Operating Officer for Acute Services, Claire Thompson said: “In terms of patient safety, no concerns have been raised.”
In a statement, Mr Bown said: “During the investigation process it became clear that the IT system issue related to a third-party software update which was carried out last week.
“The software was stopped from running on Friday afternoon and this resulted in an immediate improvement. We are now working closely with the third-party provider to identify the root cause of the problem and a large amount of systems diagnostic data are being examined.
“Our IT system engineers have a high level of confidence that this is not a cyber-related incident.
“We would like to apologise to all those individuals who were affected by the issue, and thank Health and Community Services teams for quickly and professionally invoking business continuity processes last Friday.”
Are you a staff member or a patient who was impacted by the Health department's IT issues?
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