Kaiser fixes computer problem

Kaiser Permanente’s computer system, which serves 4.5 million members in Northern California, was down for five hours on Sunday, limiting how patients could connect to doctors during a health crisis.

Members experienced intermittent errors while attempting to access features on the website and mobile app, but were still able to communicate with representatives by phone, a spokesman said. The company did not explain what caused the outage.

“Doctors and nurses had access to all of the information they needed to care for our members,” the spokesman said. “Our emergency departments and medical facilities were not affected by the website outage – they are open and are safe places to receive care.”

The outage in the midst of a pandemic concerned Kaiser member Sky Stanfield, who lives in San Francisco. She called Kaiser’s 24hour advice hotline at 1 a.m. Sunday when she was in so much back pain she couldn’t sleep and was unable to book a telemedicine appointment on her app.

The nurse on the line told her the computer system was down and Stanfield could either wait for Kaiser to make her an appointment when it was working again or go to the emergency room — which she didn’t need or want to do.

“In normal times it would be terrible, but especially in the situation of a pandemic, where you don’t want someone to go out and interact and pay fees associated with emergency visits,” Stanfield said.

The situation was unchanged when Stanfield called again at 8:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. and she almost went to the emergency room because of her pain. Just before noon, she was able to book an appointment through her app and get a doctor to prescribe her pain medication.

“There should be a backup plan to get medical care when the system fails,” Stanfield said.