Mass General Brigham, one of the largest health systems in America, has canceled all non-urgent visits, procedures and surgeries due to a global IT outage.
Hospitals were thrown into chaos overnight as the outage crippled Windows systems around the world, knocking computers and medical devices offline and forcing medical staff to rely on pen and paper.
Mass General Brigham in Boston, which serves 2.5 million patients annually in 15 hospitals and clinics, has said it will only provide care to patients with urgent health problems.
Mass General Brigham – one of the largest healthcare systems in America – has canceled all non-urgent visits, procedures and surgeries due to a global IT outage (inventory)
“We have deployed all available resources to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience this has caused our patients,” the health care 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 being treated in our hospitals.’
Tufts Medical Center and South Shore Health, also in Boston, also experienced issues as a result of the global outage.
But the problem extends far beyond Massachusetts. Hundreds of hospitals are believed to be affected by the problem.
The 911 centers and non-emergency services also became confused and did not function properly in several states.
The full impact of the bug is not yet known, but hundreds of thousands of computers around the world have suddenly gone dark in the middle of the night, affecting businesses, transport links and TV broadcasts worldwide.
A software bug with a piece of cybersecurity technology called CrowdStrike appears to be the culprit. The tool is used to protect against hacking threats.
The issue appears to occur on PCs running Microsoft Windows 10.
This is a developing story
