A global Internet outage is impacting patient services at Bluewater Health, the hospital said Friday.
"Patients should expect delays in service and potential appointment cancellations following a Microsoft/CrowdStrike global IT outage, which has been confirmed NOT to be a cyber-attack,” the hospital said in a joint statement along with the group of regional hospitals — Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and Windsor Regional Hospital.
“TransForm, our regional IT service provider, is working diligently on restoration efforts while staff in our hospitals use downtime procedures, including paper charting.”
Patients in the emergency department can expect longer wait times, while some appointments and procedures may be impacted, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and diagnostic imaging (X-ray, CT, MRI, ultrasound, mammography).
Patients will be contacted directly by the hospital if the outage impacts their appointment or procedure.