New York City hospitals are generally still functioning today, despite a tech outage affecting computer systems across the globe, according to the head of the city’s public hospital system.
Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals said while the city’s public hospital system was humming along, some health care systems are delaying care.
Some medical procedures and appointments have been postponed at facilities in both New York and New Jersey following a faulty software update by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, according to hospitals and patients.
RWJ Barnabas Health, a massive New Jersey medical system, said some of its computer and phone systems were affected by the defective software update.
“As patient safety is our highest priority and out of an abundance of caution, we are delaying some procedures for patients until this situation is resolved,” RWJ Barnabas Health spokesperson Robert Cavanaugh said in a statement.
He added that the health system’s IT team is working to remediate the issue.
Meanwhile, Hackensack Meridian Health, another major Garden State hospital system, said it appeared to be unscathed a little after noon on Friday.
“Patient facing systems are not directly impacted and we continue to evaluate all of our systems,” said spokesperson Benjamin Goldstein.
In Manhattan, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center wavered on whether to cancel procedures Friday morning. The hospital posted on its website that it would be “pausing the start of any procedure that requires anesthesia” and was in the process of calling patients who were affected.
By early afternoon, the center’s spokesperson Andrea Fassacesia said all procedures that were previously paused were resuming. Fassacesia said the temporary pause was “out of an abundance of caution.”
NYC Health + Hospitals and most other city hospitals use a company called Epic for their electronic medical records, which was not affected by the outage, according to Katz. But he said there may be some computers throughout hospitals that are affected, which could create delays for patients as clinicians attempt to do things manually.
“Patients should keep their appointments,” Katz said at a press conference with Mayor Eric Adams Friday morning. But, he added, “People should have a little extra patience with their doctor or nurse.”
A spokesperson for NewYork-Presbyterian said the hospital network continued to operate normally Friday.
But Mount Sinai Health System suggested on its website that some patients’ appointments might be delayed.
“All appointments today remain as planned unless you hear from us,” the health system wrote. “We will notify you if your non-urgent appointment or procedure needs to be rescheduled due to the global technology outage.”
Some New Yorkers reported that their medical appointments were canceled because of the outage.
City Councilmember Shahana Hanif posted on X Friday that she traveled 45 minutes from Carroll Gardens to a doctor’s appointment at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park only to find out that it was canceled.
Maimonides posted on X Friday, “Due to the global IT outage, we have delayed some nonessential procedures, but we remain open and patients continue to receive safe, high-quality care. Please call ahead of your appointments.”
But Hanif said she didn’t see the post until it was too late.