On a Thursday night at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose, California, a labor and delivery nurse experienced a significant disruption in the hospital's computer systems. What initially seemed like minor glitches escalated when all computers on the unit, including those used for accessing medical records and monitoring fetal heartbeats, suddenly shut down.
The outage extended to critical systems such as FetaLink for monitoring baby heartbeats, the automated medicine cabinet, and the security system that tracks babies with plastic tags to prevent them from getting too close to exits or elevators. The sudden loss of information and functionality left the staff feeling unnerved and overwhelmed.
