Mass General Brigham, one of the largest health systems in the United States, has eliminated all non-urgent visits, procedures and surgeries amid a global computer outage.
Hospitals were thrown into chaos overnight as the outage knocked out Windows systems around the world, rendering computers and medical devices inoperable and forcing medical staff to resort to pen and paper.
Mass General Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, which serves 2.5 million patients a year at its 15 hospitals and clinics, said it would only provide care to patients with urgent health problems.
Mass General Brigham, one of the largest health care systems in the United States, has eliminated all non-urgent visits, procedures and surgeries amid a global computer outage (stock)
“We have dedicated all available resources to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused our patients,” the provider said.
“Our top priority is to ensure that our patients receive the safest care possible.”
A spokesperson added: “We continue to care for all patients currently receiving care in our hospitals.”
Tufts Medical Center and South Shore Health, also in Boston, were also experiencing issues related to the global technology disruption.
But the problem extends far beyond Massachusetts. Hundreds of hospitals are believed to be affected by the issue.
Also thrown into chaos were 911 and non-emergency call centers, which were not functioning properly in several states.
While the full impact of the bug is not yet known, hundreds of thousands of computers around the world suddenly shut down in the middle of the night, affecting businesses, transport links and television broadcasts globally.
The culprit appears to have been a software flaw in a cybersecurity technology called CrowdStrike, which is used to protect against hacking threats.
The issue appeared to affect PCs running Microsoft’s Windows 10.
This is a developing story.