A computer issue has slammed Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville. Hospital officials understandably are downplaying the situation, but insiders tell Wellsville Regional News (WRN) the situation "is bad." The situation, sources tell us, was first discovered Christmas Eve. Another source said, "That's when all Hell broke loose."
Hospital spokesperson Judy Burt released the following statement exclusively to WRN this afternoon. The statement says -
"Jones Memorial Hospital is experiencing unexpected computer downtime because of some computer system problems. To the best of our knowledge, no patient or financial has been compromised."
The statement continued to say "some elective patient services have been rescheduled." The hospital has also had difficulty accessing data.
According to Burt and other sources, hospital staff have reverted to paper logs and entries. As one source explained, that's fine for veteran staffers, but it's a little new to newcomers.
The hospital is asking patients using JMH service or clinics to bring their complete medications list and any available medical history with them for any visits. Jones IT staff is working with the University of Rochester to bring the computer system 'back to life.'
WRN reached out to several area medical facilities. None would speak on the record but one said quietly "it's been a nightmare."
Jones Memorial says patient record safety is a top priority and that issue remains a primary focus.
While other rumors continue to swirl, they can't be confirmed and won't be posted until they can be. After a small unrelated glitch, here is the official hospital statement:
Jones Memorial Hospital is experiencing unexpected computer downtime because of some computer system problems.
To the best of our knowledge, no patient financial or medical information has been compromised. Some elective patient services have been rescheduled, but otherwise patient care has not been affected. We are using our standard computer downtime procedures, including manual entry of information into patient medical charts, while some of our systems are off-line.
We ask patients using JMH services or clinics to bring their complete medications list and any available medical history with them to any visits.
The issue is isolated to Jones Memorial Hospital's computer system. Our Information Technology staff is partnering with the University of Rochester IT department to bring our computer systems back to full functionality as soon as possible.