This article is reprinted from the Speak Out Now healthcare newsletter at Highland Hospital in Oakland, CA.
Highland computer network systems unexpectedly shut down twice last week, sending the hospital into chaos as computers, phones, elevators, and badge-access doors all suddenly stopped working.
Patient care was severely disrupted for several hours over both days. Nurses were unable to open medication rooms to access patient medications. CT scans and MRIs were delayed as patients could not be transported on elevators. The hospital went on “diversion,” while ambulances carrying people in the community who were suffering from strokes or heart attacks had to avoid Highland and travel to farther-away hospitals.
The official AHS memo blamed the failure on an “uninterruptible power supply,” which seems like the wrong name for something that was clearly able to be interrupted multiple times.
Hospital workers wondered if this was the result of a malicious cyber attack, or simply our own underfunded, failing infrastructure. How sad to not even be able to tell if we’re being hacked or if our own computer networks are just that unreliable!
When people’s lives depend on computer systems running seamlessly, those systems should not be capable of catastrophic failures. Backups should be built into these systems to guarantee continuous operation, and this does not mean just supplying us with antique downtime forms. Healthcare workers should be able to trust management to get us functional equipment to do our jobs, not left hanging when our badges won’t even work to open the doors!
Click here to read the article printed in the 04-15-26 Healthcare Newsletter
