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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The Hospital Authority (HA) today (October 7) made the following announcement on a recent incident concerning the Clinical Management System (CMS):
The HA has been planning to upgrade the software programme of all computer systems in public hospitals at the 4th quarter of this year to dovetail the latest development in information technology.
The Information Technology and Health Informatics (IT&HI) Division of HA received reports from a public hospital on September 30 at around 4.30pm that some of the computer systems were unable to assess the CMS. The Division has immediately reviewed the related systems and found that some of the computer systems installed with CMS were misconfigured to upgrade the software. Rectification to the software was performed immediately. The Division has also carried out a comprehensive review of all the computer systems in public hospitals to assess the possible impact.
Following a thorough review and assessment, it was confirmed that the majority of the 16 000 sets of computers installed with the CMS in public hospitals were functioning normally. Among them, around 200 sets were found to be affected and required immediate rectification, accounting for around 1.5 per cent of the total computer systems with CMS in public hospitals. It was confirmed in the following day (October 1) that all the affected computer systems have resumed normal.
In the occurrence of the incident, there were other computer systems in the clinical departments functioning normally. Therefore patients' management and treatment have not been affected. However, operational efficiency might be compromised to a certain extent.
The HA is very concerned about the incident and has directed the IT&HI Division to conduct a thorough investigation. At a meeting today to discuss the preliminary review, it was noted that the incident might be related to both human factor and the workflow arrangements. The investigation report, which will identify the root cause and make recommendations to prevent recurrence of similar incidents, will be submitted to the HA Chief Executive within two weeks.
Ends/Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Issued at HKT 20:49
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