> The hospital couldn’t accept emergency patients because of the attack
Yes they could.
Yes they could.
We are currently working with some equipment in radiology. Devices need to be connected to network, so that they can display data on proprietary viewing device connected to the network. Some devices (and viewers) are using old versions of windows (win2000 and linux, still see RH4 ) as a base. You don't have control/access over the windows machines only vendors do, and a lot of them are obsolete versions. Windos 2k is still common.
Network dies (or is inaccessible) for any reason, and device is unusable, because you cant control it or see the results.
I spoke to their systems guys, they are aware of risk, but their hands are often tied.
Either have it old and offline, or connected and updated.
Preferably offline and updated though. Forcing an online "subscription" and not keeping up their end of the bargain infuriates me.
So while they could take in the patient, a lot of the equipment wouldn't work. So it's better to reject the patient and send them to a facility where they could be treated properly, instead of dealing with faulty equipment.
What exactly about a computer system prevents them from admitting a person?
Just pick up a piece of paper and write down whatever you'd write down later in the computer once it's back up. It's not that hard.
I could understand if a particular machine that goes ping couldn't be used because of the computer system being down. But that's a very specific issue.
I reckon even a restaurant with a modern POS system would be problematic to switch to paper, ad-hoc.
This is essential for society readiness.
They occasionally get caught by rarer situations like a blackout combined with a flood which takes out the generators.
My local shop on the other hand would have no issues. Strictly cash only, or a verbal credit agreement if you don't have enough on you. The proprietor refuses to get a card machine, says the risk is too great for a business with such low margins.
it would be slower and a couple more orders might get messed up, but it's not that big of a problem. a lot of restaurant POS systems are just a calculator with a touchscreen that prints two tickets per order (one for the kitchen, and one for the servers) and tells you how much to charge the customer. then the kitchen spikes their copy when they finish the order, and the server spikes theirs after they bring it to the table. on fancier ones, the tickets are just shown on a screen and you "spike" them by pressing the done button. anybody who understands how to do their job in the first place can emulate the digital system on pen-and-paper. in fact, the POS went down more than once when I worked in restaurants, and this is exactly what we did.
But it was hard enough to deal with that we always waited for them to come back up before checking people out again.
Recently, after a hurricane, I heard local supermarkets were checking people out manually. It involved looking up prices of everything (by running to the shelf, I think!) and then writing it down and doing actual math. I was amazed that they even tried it. It's so difficult as to be nearly impossible thanks to the way things are done in normal times.
And that's just a grocery store. Medical stuff has to be way, way harder.
A nurse gives someone medication that they told you they are allergic to.
I'm not sure a nonmilitary a doctor today could spin one of those info-management systems up in a single day though.
I don't see how that is relevant
I don't manage their MT systems but I know about them and I hear about them from co-workers.
And just going on common sense I don't see how a computer could prevent a hospital from admitting a patient. We're talking about admission, not any special treatment.
So it's an honest question to the community, not trying to be dogmatic here. I'm honestly asking, what in a computer system could prevent a patient from being admitted for care?
As far as I can reason, no drugs are being held hostage by a computer. Doctors can still use their training without a computer.
Humans have been treating ailments for thousands of years without the aide of computers.
It would be really sad if this woman died because hospital staff felt hopeless without computers.
Edit: Going beyond just the human dependence on computers, it would be a good exercise in society readiness to be able to treat patients during a blackout for example.
Common sense is knowledge gained by experience. Thats' why kids "don't have any".
> I'm honestly asking, what in a computer system could prevent a patient from being admitted for care?
This is a good question for us to have more detailed understanding of.
I'd say it has more to do with sound logical reasoning, and not only with accrued information.
That's exactly why I said "not only" instead of "not".
> I don't see how X
Then what's often lacking is an experience or knowledge that would allow them to imagine X.
A lot of devices in hospitals work on vendor provided machines that are not up to date. If anything happens on either end, you can't use device. I am talking about CT, MRI, endoscopy, and other devices.
If you have integrated single sign on with access cards, and AD dies, you can't login, and if you can't login you cant use the device. The reason I am pointing AD out, is because I am working in integrating such device in our software as we speak.
And now computers are in many cases deciding about life and death. Very trivial example: Boeing 737 MAX. Not able to turn off automation can cause death.
> Going beyond just the human dependence on computers, it would be a good exercise in society readiness to be able to treat patients during a blackout for example.
I agree but this does not mean that we are ready for that.
>I agree but this does not mean that we are ready for that.
Yes, well then this issue is even more important.
Because the german police are treating this as a type of homicide. So they seem to be going after the hackers as the cause of death here.
Then it becomes even more important to clarify why the woman was turned away.
Others have pointed this out but it could be as simple as general policy, or a manager not willing to risk treating her without the proper tools.
Either way, european countries have been talking about society readiness lately and this is key for society preparedness.
Therefore I'm not sure we should be pointing fingers at the hackers here, seems like an easy scapegoat for a deeper issue.
Even if they have to manually operate a ventilator for 4 hours in shifts, they are still a hospital. The most qualified place to save a life, and they turned it away.
The Boeing situation is an interesting. With the Max, Boeing broke a core tenant of aircraft design that’s been a major factor in making airliners so safe. The MCAS system’s inputs (from angle of attack sensors) were not redundant. They should have been at least doubly-redundant given that the ultimate design of MCAS could pitch the aircraft down to such a degree that the pilot could not overcome it using their own control inputs. While Boeing probably should have redesigned its airframe instead of adding MCAS, it wasn’t a fundamentally bad idea to employ automation. The system behavior changed, but the company failed to re-assess the safety implications.
All Airbus products are fly-by-wire and there’s always some level of automation in play. It degrades to employ less protections when system faults occur. There’s a lesson there for Boeing!
BTW, use the emergency info of your phone: https://www.androidcentral.com/how-add-emergency-information...; https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207021
I think if the story went like "we treated the patient immediately, but she had a rare allergy which we couldn't look up in time because a ransomware attack took our network down", it would be much more of an everyday story.
Assuming the hospital must have had a better triage response is like assuming authorities should have taken some murder threat seriously and stopped it. Maybe.. depends on frequency and other outcomes and doesn't really absolve the murderer either way.