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Microsoft IT outage impacts hospitals, emergency services

July 19, 2024

As of Friday morning, a worldwide Microsoft Windows outage that experts are calling the "largest IT outage in history" has had rippling effects worldwide. Among the impacts on the health care industry so far:

• Mass General Brigham announced that all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits are cancelled today. (Toole, 2024) Many other health systems across the U.S., including Cincinnati Children's and the Hospital of Special Surgery in New York, have asked patients to expect delays. (Palmer, 2024)
• Emergency services and 911 outages have been reported across the U.S., including in New York, Arizona, Alaska, and New Hampshire (Regen et al, 2024)
• Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust reported that radiotherapy treatments at their hospitals had been impacted. They declared a critical incident, saying they're “currently unable to deliver our scheduled radiotherapy treatments." (Griffin et al, 2024)
• Across England, GP surgeries and pharmacies have said they're unable to book appointments or access patients' prescriptions. (Bancroft, 2024)
• Medical providers including the UK’s National Health Service, one of Europe’s largest health facilities in northern Germany, as well as health services in Israel have been impacted. (Regen et al, 2024)

This story is developing (7/19).

Sources:

Toole, M. (2024, July 19). CBS News. Microsoft outage forces Mass General Brigham to cancel non-urgent surgeries, hospital visits. https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/microsoft-outage-crowdstrike-mass-general-brigham-hospitals-boston/

Palmer, K. (2024, July 19). STAT. Microsoft global outage forces health systems to cancel appointments, delay procedures. https://www.statnews.com/2024/07/19/microsoft-crowdstrike-outage-hospitals-cancellations/

Regen, H, et al. (2024, July 19). CNN Business. Global Microsoft outage hits airlines, banks and businesses. https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/global-outage-intl-hnk/index.html

Griffin, A., et al. (2024, July 19). MSN. Microsoft IT outage live: Crowdstrike update sparks global chaos for airlines, hospitals and banks. https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/microsoft-it-outage-live-crowdstrike-update-sparks-global-chaos-for-airlines-hospitals-and-banks/ar-BB1qg3MD?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Bancroft, H. (2024, July 19). Independent. GPs and pharmacies hit by global IT outage disrupting appointment bookings and prescriptions. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/microsoft-outage-it-glitch-nhs-gp-prescription-b2582519.html