A major healthcare network based in central Illinois is apparently back to paper while dealing with a network-wide systems outage.
Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) is experiencing an outage across its entire network of hospitals and medical centers in Illinois and Wisconsin, including the HSHS Medical Group Practice in Jacksonville, HSHS St. Johns, and the Prairie Heart Institute in Springfield.
According to an announcement on the HSHS Facebook page, they are continuing to work through the system outage that includes what officials are calling sporadic phone system access as well as a complete outage of clinical and administrative operations and the internet.
The MyChart system communication is also down. According to a report by the Springfield State Journal-Register earlier today, MyChart helps patients schedule, manage, and check in for appointments as well as request prescription refills and other services.
HSHS is encouraging those who currently have appointments to come in as scheduled unless it is a radiation oncology treatment, in which case they say a staff member will make contact to reschedule.
In a statement to staff obtained by WLDS News this afternoon, HSHS administrators are continuing to work through the outages and are asking staff members not to post about the situation on their own social media and to minimize frustration when giving care to patients.
In the social media announcement, HSHS says they have well-established downtime policies and procedures that work very well when they experience technology issues. In the inter-organization communication, HSHS administration says the hospital system is using temporary paper records for the time being.
No word on what caused the issue which is according to multiple news outlets began Sunday morning.