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Computer Virus Forces Hospital To Divert Ambulances

Posted by Soulskill on from the outbreak-at-the-hospital dept.

McGruber writes "The Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper is reporting that a hospital with campuses in Lawrenceville and Duluth, Georgia turned ambulances away after the discovery of 'a system-wide computer virus that slowed patient registration and other operations.' They're only currently accepting patients with 'dire emergencies.' A spokeswoman for the hospital said the diversion happened because 'it's a trauma center and needs to be able to respond rapidly.' The situation began on Thursday afternoon and is expected to last through the weekend."

5 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. We're in a sad state when... by kryptKnight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The hospital is still treating patients in emergency situations but is asking people with minor ailments, such as sore throats or sprained ankles, to contact their regular providers, Okun said.

    We're in a sad state when people need to go to the hospital to deal with sore throats and sprained ankles.

    --
    Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
    1. Re:We're in a sad state when... by Datamonstar · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm currently inside a hospital data center and I can tell you that windows is behind the scenes of a lot of the systems we use. Everyone in "the know" thinks it sucks that the majority of the problems we encounter is because of borked hardware configurations in appliance machines or Windows servers. We are on mainframe (as of today, it's still the only way to get everyone's critical data to almost a dozen moajor sites at once with 99.9 uptime and I don't see us abandoning it anytime soon) and there is a god-damned Windows server that is only used to encode EDI transactions to the JES2 spooler that always crashes, causing the spool to fill up, endangering the entire system. It's a very serious problem as the only solution to it once JES is full is to IPL the system.

      The server in question doesn't even show an error message. Well, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. you can stop and start the services all you like, but you're just wasting time as the JES2 spool gets bigger. The only solution is to reboot the Windows Server. It is redundantly mirrored, but we any of you with any sense will know that this does not make the situation any less frightening. The mirror is bound to be subject to the exact same problem, since it's software-related, which would put you back at square 1 in the event of a fail-over.

      Don't even get me started about malware. Of course, all the workstations throughout the system are Windows systems. Those should not matter in case of a power outage or system-wide failure because we have downtime procedures in place, but let's face it, we'd be majorly crippled if we were to ever loose our entire network and it would likely impair our ability to serve customers. Although it shouldn't. So far we've been lucky.

      --
      The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
  2. Nuisance, Not Crisis by stevedog · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work at a trauma center, and we go to diversion all the time. It happens whenever the ER gets backed up to the point that the patients would be better served by going to a less-full ER than by coming to ours, even if that ER is a little further away. This happens at least twice weekly, although perhaps not as often as other, less busy ERs. Yes, the virus undoubtedly brought them to this clogged state much faster, but this isn't nearly the crisis the summary (or the article it is summarizing) makes it out to be.

  3. Hospitals have terrible obsolete platforms by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I did a contract with one last March which was upgrading to new state of the art medical billing system to be Obamacare compliant.

    Ran Windows 7? No. Windows XP Service pack 3 right? No. Windows XP SP 2 with IE 6?!

    Normally it is not an issue but with HIPPA it is very serious this irritated me. Someone can literally hold the hospital hostage if these medical records for tens of millions of dollars and they need at least a patched and still supported version of XP like corporate America does. The problem is custom medical software and custom devices for Xrays and MRIs use IE 6 still and are not certifed with XP SP 3 ... unless you give them $$$$ to buy all new epuipment over again. This is new software being developed in 2010 I may add requiring IE 6 and some software wont even run with SP 3 on XP. This means no security patches.

    It does not surprise me there are viruses on hospital computers as they can't be patched. WIth HIPPA you would think a hospital would always demand and use state of the art fully patched systems for security. But if were the medical records software company or make MRI machines I would be still requiring IE 6 too so I can then price gouch and double dip and charge3 another $400,000 in 2013 when support ends. I can make even MORE money. ... end rant

    The greed is incredible in the industry, but doctors can be the most and worst clients and users if you chat with anyone who supports them. THey feel supperior because they have those PHDs and make tons of money. Luckily I just helped install stuff and ignored the rest of the staff. As a result I.T. staff just never upgrade as they do not want to deal with these users at all

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    http://saveie6.com/
  4. The Real Story... by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...is that they have created a system where in they can't function as a hospital without computers.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.