Eastern Health experiences IT system outages

Eastern Health experienced a “significant IT system outage” this morning, and is working to fix the issue. Picture: ON FILE

Eastern Health experienced a “significant IT system outage” this morning, and is working to fix the issue.

The public health service, which runs both Maroondah Hospital in Ringwood and the Angliss Hospital in Upper Ferntree Gully, released a statement at 7.45am on Thursday 9 March detailing the issue.

“A Code Yellow Internal Emergency has been declared across our health service. The issue has been caused by a critical piece of IT infrastructure outage that we are currently working to rectify,” the statement said.

“There is no evidence of a cyber attack. Hospital systems have reverted to downtime procedures and business continuity plans have been enacted.”

A Code Yellow internal emergency are incidents that “threaten the safety of staff, patients, visitors or the physical structure of the facility that you are working at,” according to Healthcare Australia.

Just over three hours later, a second statement was released which said the specific cause of the issue had been identified and “remedial action is underway.”

“Business continuity processes and the return of several systems have allowed many services to continue as planned with limited interruption,” the statement said.

“Where this has occurred, patients are being notified of any disruption.”

Eastern Health said further updates will be provided throughout the day.