Media release: Waikato DHB IT outage update - June 15

Waikato DHB restored a number of foundational services during the past week which bring significant benefits for patient care and improving efficiency.

Restored clinical services include diagnostics from our laboratory and radiology services, the ability to record and track patients as they move through our hospitals, and for clinicians to access their patients’ full medical information.

Medical Director of Medical Services, Dr Graham Mills, said the restoration of those core services had changed the way clinical staff were now able to work, although they were not yet operating with their full functionality.

“It has been great to have clear visibility of patients and their information, however there are still significant limitations,” Dr Mills said.

Chief Executive, Dr Kevin Snee said there remained a great deal of work to be done across the DHB which will take time.

“These are crucial services for our patients – and key milestones in the DHB’s recovery. With these back up and running our hospitals have been able to take a big step forward, but there is a still a long road ahead.

“We continue to prioritise clinical services to minimise disruption for patients.”

Radiation therapy was resumed last week. A number of patients had required care to be outsourced to facilities in Tauranga and Wellington while the service was restored.

As they complete their treatment, those Waikato DHB clinicians who had travelled with them to ensure continuity of care are able to return to Waikato and the service is expected to be operating at near normal capacity next week.

Following the cyber security incident, DHB staff introduced manual processes across its hospitals to ensure continuity of care and safety. These are still necessary in many areas, including those where services have been partially restored, which means all activities require additional time.

The use of manual process enabled hospital services to continue delivering the majority of elective and other procedures. Work is now underway to review patients whose treatment had to be deferred over the past weeks and to re-book them according to their clinical priority.