Hospital IT problems the result of years of under-investment, experts say
New Zealand hospitals in the Waikato region experienced an 11-hour IT outage, forcing staff to revert to manual record-keeping and defer appointments. Experts attribute the failure to long-term under-investment in health technology infrastructure.
Why it matters
Systemic IT failures in healthcare highlight the risks of aging infrastructure and the challenges of maintaining critical public services under budget constraints.
Hospital IT problems are the result of years of under-investment, experts say, and warn it will not be a quick fix.
The latest in a series of outages took five hospitals across the Waikato region - Waikato, Thames, Te Kūiti, Tokoroa, and Taumarunui - offline for 11 hours on Wednesday, caused by a connection problem with the data centre.
Staff were forced to switch to pen and paper, and Health New Zealand (HNZ) said some non-urgent appointments were deferred.
HNZ said 68 appointments and 15 theatre cases were deferred at Waikato Hospital, and were being rescheduled.
Robin Gauld, a professor in health systems who is now the executive dean at Bond Business School in Queensland, Australia, said it was due to years of under-investment.
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