Oracle engineers accidentally triggered a five-day software outage at several hospitals within the Community Health Systems (CHS) network, forcing the facilities to revert to paper-based patient records temporarily. The outage, which affected Oracle Health’s electronic health record (EHR) system, began on April 23 and impacted a number of hospitals, with trade publication Becker’s Hospital Review reporting 45 hospitals were affected. CHS, which operates 72 hospitals across 14 states, confirmed that the issue was caused by engineers mistakenly deleting critical storage connected to a key database during routine maintenance work.
The outage was resolved on Monday and was confirmed not to be related to a cyberattack or any security breach. Although the disruption was significant, CHS reassured the public that its hospitals were able to continue providing services without any major impact on patient care. A CHS spokesperson commended the hospital staff for their professionalism and commitment during the multi-day outage, which they navigated by following established downtime procedures. Despite the inconvenience, the hospitals were able to maintain high-quality care for patients during the outage.
Oracle acquired the EHR vendor Cerner in 2022 for $28.3 billion, positioning itself as the second-largest player in the U.S. healthcare software market, just behind Epic Systems. EHR systems, which are digital versions of patient medical histories, are essential to the U.S. healthcare system. When these systems experience outages, it can severely disrupt patient care, especially in hospitals relying heavily on these technologies for day-to-day operations.
With the systems now back online, CHS confirmed that the impacted hospitals are working to fully restore functionality and return to normal operations. This incident comes on the heels of a nationwide outage of Oracle’s federal electronic health record system, which occurred only weeks prior. Oracle has also faced difficulties in the rollout of its EHR system with the Department of Veterans Affairs, a project that has been fraught with challenges, including concerns over patient safety. In response, the VA initiated a strategic review of Cerner’s system in 2021, pausing the deployment of the software in 2023.
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