An investigation is underway into a major computer system outage at some of Queensland’s largest hospitals.
The Gold Coast University and Robina Hospitals were among 24 sites across the state that were caught up in the chaos when the Integrated Electronic Medical Record crashed around 8am on Wednesday.
It forced medicos to revert back to the old school method of pen and paper after they were unable to log in to the system to access digital patient records.
Queensland Health confirmed the issue was finally resolved some nine hours later.
“The ieMR’s log-in function has now been restored,” they said in a statement.
“We are continuing to monitor the situation closely.
“Back-up systems operated well, and we are not aware of any direct patient safety impacts as a result of the ieMR issues today.
It’s still unclear exactly what caused the issue, with a probe currently underway.
“A post-incident review analysis to understand the cause of the issue, and steps to prevent it occurring again in the future, will take place over coming days,” Queensland Health said.
The State Opposition has labelled the bungle, which is the third for Queensland Health in just a week, as “embarrassing”.
“The Health Minister must explain how Queensland’s digital medical records system could experience such a catastrophic failure, putting, as health workers say, patient safety at risk,” Shadow Health Minister Ros Bates said.
“This is yet another embarrassing bungle on Shannon Fentiman’s watch”.
