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Comment by nullindividual | Hacker News Reader

From having seen the infusion process myself, I take it that it requires precision measurements over an extended period of time. This would seem unreasonable requirement for staff to perform.

Again, from what I've seen, infusions are not just "throw it in an IV bag and wait".

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If it requires a computer, why was that operationally critical computer not restored from a backup within hours after the problem started? This has nothing to do with CrowdStrike or other bugs - it could've simply failed hardware wise and the hospital should have been able to replace it immediately.

You have a naive view of how modern operations work, I must say. This shows when you suggest endpoints have backups. We're back to the mainframe/terminal times where all software is running on a web server or other centralized application server, which is also in a boot loop, somewhere else.

Failed hardware is different, but hospitals likely have very few computers just 'lying around'. Especially the highly regulated machines, such as those which are attached to MRIs and the like.

CFR 21 Part 11 was the bane of my existence. Software that can be installed and configured in a matter of minutes? That's a six month project, at least. Sure, backups are great, but then you've got a significant process to get it back up and running.

These aren't early-2000 logging operations.

I see you'll never be convinced, but this is how modern operations work. Being a hospital (or other industry with heavy government regulations) make operations that much worse.

You misunderstood me, I am easily convinced that this is the case - what I don't get is how they could let it be the case.

Very few companies, for-profit or otherwise, keep gobs of machinery on hand "just in case". It's expensive, not only the machinery, but the space to store it, maintain it while not in use, replace it when it ages out, and so on. It's also exceedingly rare to need it.

Hospitals also have limited resources in terms of IT staff. It's not a Azure army of operations staff that can rush out to every endpoint and click buttons.

When I was in helpdesk eons ago, I was "responsible" for roughly 300 - 400 endpoints, plus a handful of servers. As were all of the other helldesk techs. If something like this happened, there's simply not enough hands to go around as fast as everyone would like.

What I meant when I said reinstall the PCs was to reinstall the critical computers necessary for operation of medical machinery to make basic and still mostly manual/paper based operation possible, not every computer they have there. I really don't think they have hundreds of computers necessary for operations of MRIs and other machines.

Modern operations doesn't go around reinstalling things on machines like that.

And due to CFR 21 Part 11, what you ask would be a non-starter.

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