Sutter Health services cut in system outage
A computer network outage at Sutter Health is forcing the health system to turn away some emergency room patients and cancel surgeries, lab orders and other procedures at many of its Northern California hospitals and clinics.
The problems began Monday night and continued Tuesday. Sutter’s website also briefly went down Tuesday.
The outage is affecting all sites at Sutter, a major health system in the region, though different locations may be affected differently, according to the company.
At Alta Bates Sutter Medical Center in Oakland, clinicians have been unable to log into the electronic health records system to access patient data, according to several employees.
Patients who are coming in for previously scheduled appointments are still being seen, but their information cannot be entered into the computer system until it is restored.
The emergency room at Alta Bates remains open. But some patients at emergency rooms at other Sutter locations were turned away and sent to nearby medical centers because the hospitals were not able to accommodate their needs, according to patients and staffers. Some patients were unable to get their prescriptions filled because pharmacists could not get verification from the prescribing doctor. And physicians, even when they were able to see patients in person, were limited in how to treat them because they could not access information about their medical history, such as X-rays and blood work.
Scott and Kelli Shaughnessy of Roseville (Placer County) were scheduled for a cesarean section on Tuesday, but were told when they arrived at Sutter Roseville Medical Center that the surgery could not be performed because of the system outage.
“We were shocked,” said Scott Shaughnessy. “It’s really inconvenient.”
The couple had arranged for relatives from out of town to come in and take their two other young children to school during the procedure. They were told that it might take up to three days to reschedule the C-section.
Other patients, like Shannon Hopkins, were frustrated that they could not access Sutter’s website for information about future appointments. Hopkins, who goes to the Sutter-owned Palo Alto Medical Foundation clinic in Mountain View, has an appointment scheduled for Friday but had no way to confirm the time, she said.
Bryan Marcelino of Vallejo said he spent nearly six hours waiting at the emergency room at Sutter Solano Medical Center, where he sought treatment for painful swelling in one of his hands. The doctors and staff repeatedly told him the process would take longer than usual because they had to document everything on paper.
“It is concerning not knowing when they’re going to have it back up,” Marcelino said. “There was no certain answer.”
One Alta Bates employee, who asked for anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the health system’s behalf, expressed surprise that the hospital’s backup system had not taken over.
“Some of our information systems are currently off-line,” Sutter said Tuesday via Twitter. “We have implemented our standard downtime procedures and are working to restore our systems.”
The company said the outage was “due to an activation of the fire suppression system in one of our Information Services buildings” and that it was working to restore services. Medical records were being written on paper in the meantime.
“Services are open, although some services may need to be delayed or rescheduled,” the Sacramento company also tweeted. “Patients are asked to arrive at their appointments as scheduled unless they have been contacted with specific instructions otherwise.”