Kaiser Permanente computer system down for five hours during coronavirus pandemic

Kaiser Permanente’s laptop system, which serves four.5 million members in Northern California, was down for 5 hours on Sunday, limiting how sufferers might hook up with docs throughout a well being disaster.

Members skilled intermittent errors whereas making an attempt to entry options on the web site and cell app, however have been nonetheless capable of talk with representatives by telephone, a spokesman stated. The corporate didn’t clarify what triggered the outage.

“Docs and nurses had entry to all the data they wanted to take care of our members,” the spokesman stated. “Our emergency departments and medical services weren’t affected by the web site outage – they’re open and are protected locations to obtain care.”

The outage within the midst of a pandemic involved Kaiser member Sky Stanfield, who lives in San Francisco. She known as Kaiser’s 24-hour recommendation hotline at 1 a.m. Sunday when she was in a lot again ache she couldn’t sleep and was unable to ebook a telemedicine appointment on her app.

The nurse on the road informed her the pc system was down and Stanfield might both await Kaiser to make her an appointment when it was working once more or go to the emergency room — which she didn’t want or wish to do.

“In regular instances it could be horrible, however particularly within the state of affairs of a pandemic, the place you don’t need somebody to exit and work together and pay charges related to emergency visits,” Stanfield stated.

The state of affairs was unchanged when Stanfield known as once more at eight:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. and he or she virtually went to the emergency room due to her ache. Simply earlier than midday, she was capable of ebook an appointment by means of her app and get a health care provider to prescribe her ache remedy.

“There must be a backup plan to get medical care when the system fails,” Stanfield stated.

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco Chronicle workers author. Electronic mail: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@mallorymoench