BOSTON (WHDH) – Friday morning’s major technology outage snarled operations at several area hospitals, forcing patients to reschedule some appointments and procedures.
Hospitals remain open and are providing emergency care. But some patients have encountered delays while staff work around affected technology.
“We are aware of this global IT disruption and have been in close contact with the vendor,” Tufts Medical Center said in a statement. “We are in the process of assessing the impact of the disruption on our clinical and surgical operations.”
Sources told 7NEWS an email was sent to Tufts employees Friday morning alerting them to the outage, which officials identified as originating from an external partner, CrowdStrike. The email told employees officials did not have a timeline for resolution.
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, said the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or a cyberattack.
“We are currently operating under an emergency management structure as we await resolution of this disruption,” Tufts said in its statement. “During this time, we remain open and able to provide safe patient care.”
Nick Duncan, the operations director of Tufts, said the hospital saw over 70 percent of its patients that were scheduled Friday for both elective and urgent cases.
“On a case by case basis, we may have canceled or rescheduled based on the availability of equipment and computers to make sure that we’re supporting the patients in the safest way,” Duncan said.
He expects the hospital to be completely back online by Monday.
Mass General Brigham — which operates hospitals including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Newton-Wellesley Hospital — was also impacted. All previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits were canceled, officials announced.
“A major worldwide software outage has affected many of our systems at Mass General Brigham, as well as many major businesses across the country,” Mass General Brigham said in a statement. “Mass General Brigham remains open to provide care to patients with urgent health concerns in our clinics and emergency departments, and we continue to care for all patients currently receiving care in our hospitals.”
Beth Israel Lahey Health locations were open Friday and providing patient care, though officials warned there may be delays in service.
“Please arrive as scheduled for any appointments unless you hear from a member of your care team,” the network said on X, formerly Twitter.
Beth Israel Lahey Health said teams were working “to resolve the impacts of a global technology outage”.
“We appreciate your patience,” officials said.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute advised all patients with Friday appointments to stay home until further notice.
A Boston Medical Center spokesperson told 7NEWS tech issues were only affecting administrative work.
A Boston Children’s Hospital spokesperson said their hospital was not impacted.
Outage temporarily impacts NH 911 system
New Hampshire’s 911 system had been out Friday morning, but was fully restored near 6:15 a.m., according to the state Division of Emergency Service and Communications. During the outage, dispatchers were able to see calls but not answer them. Calls and texts were being received on a backup system.
Boston EMS had some minor operational impacts. But officials said they were able to operate as normal, and 911 calls were not impacted.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said her administration was closely monitoring the incident.
“Our team is working to assess and mitigate the impact on Massachusetts,” Healey said on X, formerly Twitter. “We’re in contact with public safety, health care, and transportation officials, but residents may experience delays while we resolve the outage.”
Hospital patients react to disruption
At Massachusetts General Hospital, patients shared their reaction to Friday’s disruption.
“I was pretty pissed,” said Doreen Richards. “But what are you going to do?”
Richards said she drove roughly five hours from Malone, New York for her pre-operation appointment ahead of a scheduled open-heart surgery in August.
Then, Richards said, she got a phone call at 6 a.m. changing her plans.
“She said ‘Your appointment is canceled,’ and I said ‘What? Is this for real?’” Richards said.
Richards said she will have to reschedule her appointment and go back home. While frustrated about the sudden shuffle, she said she and her family planned to take advantage of the rest of the day in Boston.
“We’re going to go whale watching and take the kids to see different things,” she said.
Kerry Grant, who works for Massachusetts General Hospital, said the MGH computer system was not working for anyone Friday morning.
“It’s a big, big, big deal that it’s down,” Grant said.
Andrew Chipman said his father was a patient at MGH who was being discharged Friday. He said nurses needed to fill out discharge paperwork by hand.
“So, it’s slowing it down by a couple of hours,” he said.
At Tufts Medical Center, patients were told to expect delays.
“The computers were slow,” said Ruth Lukyamuvia. “They were just slow and my appointment was late.”
“It seemed like the doctors and the teams were on time but they were just really frustrated with everything that’s going on,” said Tufts patient Jason Ard. “…So, it was a tough time of it.”
Issues impacting hospitals were ongoing as of Friday night.
This is a developing story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest updates.
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