Patients with appointments booked for Friday at hospitals in Chatham-Kent and Sarnia were being warned of possible delays and cancellations Friday due to a global IT outage.
Flights were grounded, bank networks were affected, and hospital systems around the world were knocked offline Friday morning when a software disruption affected computers running Microsoft Windows.
A joint statement from the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and Bluewater Health, issued late Friday afternoon, said significant progress was made in getting systems back online.
"The majority of clinical systems have been restored and remaining non-clinical systems will be completed over the weekend," read the statement via TransForm, the IT service provider for both hospitals. "While wait times have been reduced significantly due to these efforts, patients may experience minor delays over the course of the weekend. Hospitals will contact patients directly if there is an impact to appointments or procedures."
CrowdStrike reported Friday that the issue causing the outage was not a cyber attack, but the problem occurred when a faulty update was deployed to computers that run Microsoft Windows.
The hospitals warned of longer wait times in the emergency department. Patients with appointments for surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and diagnostic imaging were to be contacted directly if the outage affected their appointment.
The outage has also affected operations at the Rapids Family Health Team in Sarnia.