12.14.11
Bitten by progress for the sake of progress
Good examples of extremely poor planning when evolving to all digital services, snafus at a hospital and an ambulance dispatcher.
A damaging, fast-spreading computer bug forced an Atlanta-area hospital system to shut its doors for nearly three days last week and divert ambulances to other facilities.
Gwinnett Medical Center’s two campuses, in Lawrenceville and Duluth, Ga., were forced to declare “total diversion” status and turn away all but extreme trauma …
[Malware] affected connectivity only, and did not compromise medical records or affect patient care “in any way, shape or form.”
What happens when power fails due to heavy rains, high wind or hurricane? Possibly, some resources are maintained through limited emergency generator back-up power.
A hospital is not expected to cease operation or turn away patients in such emergencies.
Chalk some of this up to bad infrastructure, poor staffing and unwise decision-making and choices when the transition to networked services was made.
The bedrock of the practice of medicine and keeping people alive is in the real world, not the virtual. There’s a need to look for better help when failure in the virtual takes your legs out from under you more than momentarily.