Health care providers across the Southern California were working to remedy the impacts of a cybersecurity firm’s faulty software update, which caused technological chaos across the globe on Friday, July 19, including at airports, government offices, businesses — and hospitals.
The software update, issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, affected customers running Microsoft Windows, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground flights across the country on Friday, along with a slew of other impacts on myriad organizations’ digital operations.
Southland hospitals were not immune.
A majority of hospitals in the region — including those run by major health care chains, such as Dignity Health and St. Joseph Health — seemed to be hit in some way.
The outage, though, was largely felt on the administrative and record keeping side of operations, said one person who works with multiple hospitals across the region and was familiar with the issues, but who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
“(Some hospitals) are experiencing some delay in (admissions),” they said, “so then they have to go old school — and they actually have to write the person’s name down and get their address.”
Any new patients admitted the old fashioned way — that is, on paper — will later have their data uploaded into the electronic charting system once the glitch is resolved, they said. Many hospitals, besides the issues with electronic patient chart and record tracking, were relatively unaffected, the source said.
But compared to other industries, including air travel and other businesses, the health care system was much more prepared for an emergency situation like the global glitch.
“Hospitals are better prepared because we live in a state where there are (fire and earthquake) threats — so we can’t just wait until something like this happens and then try to fix it,” she said. “We have to anticipate this. Speaking on behalf of all of our hospitals, we were better prepared.”
Kaiser Permanente — among the region’s largest health care providers, with its South Bay Medical Facility in Lomita, among many others — was also impacted by the outage, said Terry Kanakri, the organization’s spokesperson for the Southern California region.
Kaiser activated its national command center at 4:30 a.m., Kanakri said in a Friday statement, to address how its systems had been impacted and how to recover from any issues.
“In some situations, we have activated backup systems to support both continuous patient care and to secure access to medical records,” Kanakri said. “All Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical offices remain open for care and service, and we are continuing to monitor our operations as we work to restore all affected systems.”
In Torrance, the city’s largest medical provider — the Torrance Memorial Health System — was also experiencing issues as a result of the outage, though a spokesperson didn’t provide specifics about what operations had been impacted.
“We are actively working to address the issue and minimize any impacts. We remain open and continue to provide quality care to our patients,” Torrance Memorial spokesperson Julie Taylor said Friday. “We thank our patients and our staff for their flexibility during this unexpected event.”
All patients with previously scheduled appointments for Friday were expected to proceed as planned, Taylor added.
Patricia Aidem, spokesperson for Providence St. Joseph Health in Southern California — which operates multiple facilities in the region, including Little Company of Mary San Pedro — said its hospitals had also been impacted by the CrowdStrike outage.
“Other clinical applications and workstations continue to be impacted, and our IT teams are working to restore these services as soon as possible,” Aidem said in an emailed statement. “Patient safety and access to care is always the top priority at Providence. We will provide updates as new information becomes available.”
The organization’s IT teams, Aidem added, have been working since Thursday night to restore key systems. The software St. Joseph’s hospitals use to access patient records and perform clinical charting had been restored since, she said.
Related Articles
‘A bottomless pit’: How out-of-pocket TMJ costs drive patients into debt
Study: Inconsistent sleep leads to higher risk of type 2 diabetes
As public health becomes political, state surgeons general play delicate role
How an LA County scholarship program tackles the ‘diverse doctor’ shortage and crippling medical school debt
Biden tests positive for covid, has ‘mild symptoms’
MemorialCare’s Long Beach hospitals, including the Long Beach Medical Center and Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital, were largely unaffected by the global power outage, said spokesperson Wendy Dow.
“All of our managers have access to a budget tracker, and that is down — but it’s just budget tracking, nothing to do with patient care,” Dow said in a Friday interview. “So we’re really lucky,;(there’s) nothing impacting patient care and it’s been like that since this morning.”
In Pasadena, Huntington Hospital officials said Friday that it remains open despite a system disruption caused by the global technology issue.
“Huntington Health is experiencing the same Windows computer software outage that is affecting computer systems worldwide,” the 544-bed hospital said in a statement that was also posted on its website.
“This is not a cyberattack,” the statement added. “We are actively working to address the issue and minimize any impacts. We remain open and continue to provide quality care for our patients.”
Staff writer Teresa Liu contributed to this report.