Hospital patient record system Sunrise up and running after fire caused ‘major issues’

A key hospital records system is back up and running after being knocked out by a fire on Wednesday.

South Australia’s hospital electronic medical records system is operational again after a fire at Glenside caused it to fail.

At around 9.45am on Wednesday morning an electrical blaze erupted at Glenside Data Centre. It was put out before MFS arrived, while firefighters helped with ventilation.

Digital Health SA advised hospital employees that the fire was “causing major issues to services and applications for SA Health including Sunrise EMR & PAS”.

“Sunrise EMR has already failed over from Glenside DC,” a note read.

SA Health chief executive Dr Robyn Lawrence said on Thursday morning the system had been restored.

On Wednesday, SA Health chief Dr Robyn Lawrence said for non-serious matters, patients should reconsider going to hospital.

“At this stage everything looks stable and back to normal from the digital systems,” Dr Lawrence told ABC Radio.

“Overall, our systems are fully operating.”

Department staff had reverted to manually recording information with pen and paper while the system was down after the department’s backup system became overloaded.

Dr Lawrence said work was still being done to determine the exact cause of the outage, but said third-party involvement had not been raised as a possibility.

“There is no indication to me that that’s even on the agenda,” she said.

Dr Lawrence said a patient administration system affecting rural and remote areas was still down about 7.45am Thursday.

She said there wasn’t any “significant risk” of patient data being lost due to Wednesday’s outage.

Sunrise EMR is a statewide electronic system made after the $320m controversial patient record system EPAS was scrapped.

The new system is used at many of the state’s public hospitals and healthcare facilities including the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Lyell McEwin Hospital and Modbury Hospital.

It replaces the need for paper-based medical record documents. Doctor’s notes, for example, are found on Sunrise EMR.

On Wednesday, Dr Lawrence said people should consider other options for “non-urgent care” while the system is being repaired.

“South Australians should always present to hospital in an emergency and for any serious matters, but we also ask people to please consider other options at this time for non-urgent care,” she said.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA branch secretary Elizabeth Dabars. Picture: Keryn Stevens

“We are working as quickly as possible to restore all impacted systems but it will take time and some of our processes may be slower in the meantime so we are asking patients and families to please be patient.”

However, Dr Lawrence said new patients should see the system operating normally.

An SA Health spokesperson said the fire “has created issues with some systems and connectivity across the network, including with electronic medical records system”.

“SA Health is in the process of moving systems and applications over to a data centre at another location.

“We will restore all impacted systems as quickly as possible.”

Hospitals and other health facilities have put in place risk mitigation strategies and business continuity plans to ensure the safety of patients and continuity of care until the systems are restored.

SA Health is not aware of any adverse clinical outcomes.

Triple zero operations were not impacted.

Dr Lawrence said on Wednesday that hospital staff were using manual systems such as paper reporting and telephone services to manage patients across most SA hospitals until systems are back on line.

Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation SA branch secretary Elizabeth Dabars said members were experiencing “heightened workloads and less than satisfactory access” to patient records.

“Patient flow is also being by affected by restrictions on patient information including bed availability and other points of care,” she said.

“These outages will place an increased burden and on an already stressed system, which will ultimately impact on patient access such as ramping.”

The executive director and government chief information officer Dr Eva Balan-Vnuk said the data centre’s “cooling system was impacted by an electrical incident”.

“Some of South Australian Government ICT services have been impacted,” she said.

“Mitigation measures have been put in place and power is expected to be restored to the cooling system overnight.

“No significant adverse outcomes have been identified however some systems may be operating slower than usual.”