This deserves its own thread. It was buried in the thread started by Ed Yourdon, Need help preparing testimony for Senate Y2K hearing, and generated several responses (also reproduced here). I think this is too important to be missed, so I am starting a new thread. I hope Dr. Don doesn't object.

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Dear Mr. Yourdon, Thank you for one of the most interesting forums on the web. Here is my situation as best as I can describe it. I am a surgeon for thirty years on staff of a mega-hospital in the SE. We have 5700 employees and a real tough administration board of directors. Release of this computer problem information could cost immediate loss of staff privileges along with incredible legal involvements. Please do not tell anyone about this but just keep it in your mind as you prepare. My hospital has computerized itself over the last thirty years by adding on and tacking on and blending various systems. Five full time programers have kept this spider web functioning well for years. In January of 1997, they told the administration that they needed help to fix the 2000 problem. It was beyound their ability to do it. A team of experts was called in from an Ohio company to fix all the systems. It cost 2.6 million including all the rental cars, airplane tickets, temp housing ect. In November of 1997, they issued a report that the hospital systems were so jumbled up that they could not be repaired adequately and must all be replaced with new hardware and software at a cost of 28 million. The board of directors was then in the process of spending 70 million buying up local family MD practices to protect themselves from managed care companies. They voted not to spend the 28 million for new computers. So they called in a silicon valley company which specializes in remediation. Again, another 1.8 million was spent on rental cars, temp housing, airplane tickets for specialist programers to fly in and out to fix the systems. On Dec 15, 1998, they carefully began their first test of the newly installed software. Listen, within 30 seconds, the entire phone system of the hospital failed, the giant heating boilers shut down, the fire alarms went off, thousand of patient records vanished in complete chaos. It took 9 hours of frantic work to put the old system back in place. It was a miracle that no one died. A cover story was invented and a lid of secrecy was clamped down. The legal consequences of this could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The silicon valley group issued their report on Jan 12, 1999. The system can not be adequately repaired and literally needs to be totally replaced at a cost of 28 million. It will take two years to do this. The board was in total shock for weeks. They went from to denial to blame and then to fear for the legal consequences. There will be casualities.

-- dr don (don29681@aol.com), May 08, 1999.

Mr. Yourdon,

I'm concerned about Dr. Don's (dr don (don29681@aol.com))response above. While the information he has presented--if correct--is exactly the type of information that should be revealed, he is using a real email address in a public forum, while asking for confidentiality. Perhaps you could ask your Webmaster to substitute a different email address for his post, while leaving his message intact?

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), May 08, 1999.

Oh my, busy all day yesterday - but this Dr. Don thing is an interesting story to say the least! But I don't think it holds up on close examination. Take a close look at what this dude claims to have happened.

> On Dec 15, 1998, they carefully began their first > test of the newly > installed software. Listen, within 30 seconds, the > entire phone system of > the hospital failed, the giant heating boilers shut > down, the fire alarms > went off, thousand of patient records vanished in > complete chaos

Now look at the implications here. ONE system controls the phone system, the heating plant, the fire control system AND the patient records!!!! Now they knew better than that even back in the 60's, even SF writers like Robert Heinlein spoke to the danger of putting one single machine in control of everything. (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - about pg 75 if I remember rightly.) Sorry, I just can't buy this without some proof that such a bollixed up mess actually exists somewhere in the US.

Really, this is just silly. NOBODY HAS EVER designed such a mess - it would be ten times the work to hook such a series of different systems together - and IT WOULD BE AGAINST THE LAW MOST PLACES. Everyone knows that building codes most places forbid hooking other systems into fire control in a public building. And AT&T would laugh their ass off if you tried to get them to hook the phone dialer system into the patient record system. Only way everything goes out at once is POWER FAILURE - and hospitals have backup generators.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), May 09, 1999.

Paul, hate to say it but I can construct a system in which the phone system reports to the mainframe, expects a handshake response, doesn't get it and stops working. The fire system might also report and expect a handshake, and fail safely in alarm mode, and the real problem was that the mnainframe was on it's way to Toledo, taking the patient accounting stuff (or being takenBY the patient accounting software). I have seen tests in firewalled partitions take MVS down without even the customary "by-your-leave" that the operators usually get. It took IBM a while to be able to explain how the test partition actually took down the other four partitions, Live terminal processing, live batch processing and test batch processing. The reason we had IBM explain it is that we did it three days in a row. Perhaps HVAC is running as a subsystem in anohter partition. BTW One of, I think it's Seimens' phone conrollers uses a link to a mainframe if available.

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 09, 1999.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), May 10, 1999

Answers

I'm a bit concerned about the validity of Dr. Dons note as well. However, consider the test that Paul Davis has questioned. If Dr. Don is a surgeon, he is probably pretty much removes from the IT side of things. If the test was a "simulation test of everything they could think of, just to be sure", it would appear as one system, and a connected one at that to Dr Don. Perhaps it was a full simulation tast and just appeared to be one system. Then this would resolve Paul's problem.

Lets give Dr. Don the benefit of the doubt and determine that thet have to proceed to triage/contingency planning asap.

Now, back to the thread. Are there any other similar hospitial experiences out there ???

-- Jim Standen (jstanden@ucalgary.ca), May 10, 1999.

I would have to agree with Paul on the 'plausibility' of such a system. Chuck correctly states that he 'could' create a system where the phone system would stop working if the mainframe went down but the question is "Why would you?" I see Bruce beach is back at it again a few threads down and his whole theory seems to be based on "Well, you COULD create a sceondary clock that ..." but he never answers the question "Why would someone create such a thing?" Handshaking signals are common in communications interfaces between systems but rarely are they intended for anything other than to indicate that a valid message has been received or that the link is still working. The systems are designed to operate with or without the interface but both will generate a system alarm indicating that the link is down and that the latest data received from the other system may not be current. SO maybe the PBX sends the mainframe a call log every hour and gets an ACK message back from the mainframe to indicate it was received. If it fails to get the ACK, it could try to resend the message until it does or keep appending to the current log file until it successfully transmits it. Either way, loss of the interface is something that the engineer would have anticipated in the first place and a contingency would be in place.

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), May 10, 1999.

This story sounds very fishy to me. The post is written awkwardly and ungrammatically and Don misspells 'programmer' twice. As an internist I'm well aware that surgeons aren't very smart ;) but all of them that I know can write better than this. And this 'lid of secrecy' and 'cover story' business is ridiculous. It would be impossible to keep a secret like this at any hospital I've ever known.

-- Ned (entaylor@cloudnet.com), May 10, 1999.

Yes pollys....there will be no loss of life due to y2k....no problems with any hospitals...The worst is over....We are not at war with the former Soviet Union....Gold is a worthless metal....Ignorance is strength...

-- a (a@a.a), May 10, 1999.

Apparently one is a 'polly' if one does not accept completely uncritically any item of bad news, no matter how implausible?

-- Ned (entaylor@cloudnet.com), May 10, 1999.

Ned, the man is a surgeon. He doesn't understand the internals of his hospital's IS. But he is telling you, in detail, there are big problems. And you and your ilk call him a liar. Why would he lie about it? On the other hand, if he were saying "No problems", there could be a very good reason for him to be lying about it. Get it yet?

-- a (a@a.a), May 10, 1999.

Another fertile attempt to cross platform network using ?letsee languages

RPG on a HO-Well for patient records

CoBol on a DatumGumal for Accounting

PL1 on a d/Sperry-EGIS for HVAC

Using ImUM as server for JCL

And they were problably devoid of original documentation and flow charting etc.

Should have probably used a Wangwysiwyg run under China's new Figigate Atol intrepreter, I've herard it's really explosive.

Don't blame the service co. though, it sounds like the hospital Eddy Admin forcasting put the "bite" on expenditures already.

Personaly I'm suspect of the phone service "connection"

Well I gotta go polish my crank

PSS> This otta blow the cap of Deckers ferrel

-- spun@lrightAKA_rumpld@still.can (mikeymac@uswest.net), May 10, 1999.

What the hell is this guy talking about, "immediate loss of staff privileges" for MDs? I know, my whole family's in the profession, they wouldn't do that, especially for somebody of 30 years' experience. He'sprobably a senior member of the staff. If anything, most surgeons (given their tremendous egos) would be reporting this to the mainstream press immediately.

And take the risk of being fired (like he couldn't get work elsewhere--he's a surgeon)??????????

I am always EXTREMELY skeptical about reports like this where they refuse to name details or give their name. If things are really that bad and the hospital had been shut down for 9 hours, we'd have heard about it. At least he could have pointed to the mainstream "cover story" that appeared--a "megahospital" shutting down for 9 hours, with disappearing medical records, is pretty big news. It would have made a medical trade publication, at least.

Plus, if he were an MD, he'd probably be a better writer. The guy can't even keep his tenses straight.

It looks like 99.99% fraud.

-- Dr. Pathology (Dr.Pathological@Y2kliars.org), May 10, 1999.

Ned, the man is a surgeon.

He is? How do you know that? Have you seen him perform surgey? Do you know anything about him other than he made an anonymous post of an unverifiable event at an unnamed hospital, the facts of which stretch the bounds of credulity? What 30 year surgeon uses terms like "mega-hospital", "real tough administration board of directors", etc. Is it even reasonable that the programming staff is one-tenth of one percent of the total employment and these 5 guys can keep a mishmash of systems with a replacement cost of $28 million operating?

How could this event at a hospital of 5700 possibly have been kept quiet. If the fire alarms went off and the phone system was dead, there would have been a massive evacuation and fire department response because there would have been no way to communicate and tell everyone it was a false alarm. As the Dr. above said, this would be BIG news so where is the story, even if it was covered up.

I've never read the Hippocratic oath but it seems to me that if this had really happened and there really was potential for a similar occurrence on 1/1/00 that would endanger every patient at that facility, every doctor at that hospital that was aware of it would be obligated to make the situation known, regardless of any potential employment repurcussions. Any real doctors out there want to confirm this?

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), May 10, 1999.

I do not believe this post. Apart from the stilted grammar, the big picture makes no sense.

If this guy or his colleagues were aware of the described problems, someone, maybe a majority of the MDs, would be whistle blowers, anonymously if necessary. If not the doctors, then someone. Nurses, competitors, someone with a grudge.

If find it easy to believe that hospitals will be up the creek come January, but I don't believe this particular post.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), May 10, 1999.

The financial firm that I work for has its main transaction database wired directly to the giant heating boilers in the basement. Standard practice in the industry.

-- Polly (skippy@innermongolia.com), May 10, 1999.

Ned, the man is a surgeon.

He is? How do you know that? Have you seen him perform surgey? Do you know anything about him other than he made an anonymous post of an unverifiable event at an unnamed hospital, the facts of which stretch the bounds of credulity? What 30 year surgeon uses terms like "mega-hospital", "real tough administration board of directors", etc.

The man said he was a doctor. I was pointing out that he didnt claim to be a systems architect, asshole. But by all means lets attack his grammar, even though he didnt claim to be an English professor either.

Is it even reasonable that the programming staff is one-tenth of one percent of the total employment and these 5 guys can keep a mishmash of systems with a replacement cost of $28 million operating?

5 programmers is plenty for a hospital that size if they are only involved in maintenance work. From the post, you fool, its apparent that they contract out for major work. Note that programming staff does not include data entry personnel, operators, managers, etc.

How could this event at a hospital of 5700 possibly have been kept quiet. If the fire alarms went off and the phone system was dead, there would have been a massive evacuation and fire department response because there would have been no way to communicate and tell everyone it was a false alarm. As the Dr. above said, this would be BIG news so where is the story, even if it was covered up.

uh...DUH...maybe they informed folks ahead of time that they would be testing the system?

I've never read the Hippocratic oath but it seems to me that if this had really happened and there really was potential for a similar occurrence on 1/1/00 that would endanger every patient at that facility, every doctor at that hospital that was aware of it would be obligated to make the situation known, regardless of any potential employment repurcussions. Any real doctors out there want to confirm this?

As so many can attest, whistleblowing can be hazardous to your health. Why do you think most on this forum use an alias, RMS?

-- a (a@a.a), May 10, 1999.

I do not know if Dr. Don's story is valid or not. I do know that massive evacuations do not occur when fire alarms go off and phones go dead. At least not at Scottish Rite hospital in Atlanta (a major childrens hospital).

Last year, there was a fire in the kitchen at the hospital. They simply closed off areas of the hospital and made patients and visitors stay in the 'secured' areas.

When power and phones die, they mnake alot of rounds looking for trouble spots, but they certainly do not start evacuating people.

-- Dian (bdp@accessunited.com), May 10, 1999.

At the Hospital we worked at, everything went down frequently, just not all at once. The workers grumbled but were used to it. The apathy and exhaustion were a surprise to us. Except for a couple talk-good committees, the place is Y2K clueless. Our moles have quit so we can't tell y'all when if ever anybody there wakes up.
It is true that little of what goes on reaches the ears of the average joe out in the world. Hospitals are insular places to work.

Could go on at great length but already have; it's all in the archives. Suffice it to say: stay out of hospitals anywhere near the rollover!

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), May 11, 1999.

RMS finally rang my chimes. "I've never read the Hippocratic oath but it seems to me that if this had really happened and there really was potential for a similar occurrence on 1/1/00 that would endanger every patient at that facility, every doctor at that hospital that was aware of it would be obligated to make the situation known, regardless of any potential employment repurcussions."

The evidence for the massive toxicity of mercury amalgam dental fillings is overwhelming, yet doctors rarely prescribe ceramic fillings as replacements for patients presenting typical symptoms of mercury poisoning, their Hippocratic oath notwithstanding. Don't count on it.

For a comprehensive medical and historical overview, see The Dental Amalgam Issue

For an informed and devastating critique of the medical profession, see Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis: the Expropriation of Health. Also in paperback as Limits of Medicine Medical Nemesis (etc.) Apparently out of print but available used on the web.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), May 11, 1999.

"After further review, the play does NOT stand as called" (just getting in shape for August and the return of football to Cleveland LOL)

Upon second thought, I begin to wonder myself as to the validity, more from the medical details than the system ones. Have to ponder some more, but not likely to accept at face value. (Roll the instant replay again!!)

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 11, 1999.

Have to agree with a,

as usual he is on the money.

I've whistle-blowed (blush) myself, to no avail...

Would you detractors PLEASE for once try to think logically.

Thank you.

(Thinks... how come none of these detractors have ever worked in IT or have a clue? Pc's are NOT IT!)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 11, 1999.

what a bunch of horseshit

-- (JBD@JB.D), May 11, 1999.

I would not be so quick to dismiss "Dr. Don's" comments because of his poor use of English. Just went to a MD who has been practicing in this country for forty years, he's from India. When I compare his use of the English Language, he makes Dr. Don look like an English Professor.

-- Watcher5 (anon@anon.com), May 11, 1999.

We can't believe what this whistleblower is saying because if what he is saying is true, then surely we would already heard about it from a whistleblower!!!??!!!?

-- humpty (no.6@thevillage.com), May 11, 1999.

Watcher: His English is not THE reason to question the post but is additional evidence that he may not be who he claims to be.

Humpty: Dr. Don is NOT a whistle-blower. A whistle-blower is someone who exposes a problem that has been intentionally covered up so that it may be rectified. Dr. Don has done nothing to bring awareness to this alleged situation.

To Andy and a: If you still insist on believing this account, re-read the opening paragraph of the "O pollyanna" thread, initiated by a fellow doomer, and see if you see yourself.

If you actually look at what the basis of the positions taken by legitimate pollyannas, ... it always boils down to the following: Acceptance of happy face reports on Y2K progress without question, then challenging anyone who disputes them ... asking what evidence you have that the report is not accurate, or demanding proof that the report, even if not completely accurate, would actually cause big problems.

Are you two not blindly accepting this anonymous account and the challenging those of us who dispute it? While none of us can "prove" it did NOT happen, there is certainly enough doubt that a reasonable person would expect additional corroboration before accepting it as fact and not another Y2K legend.

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), May 11, 1999.

yes humpty - such is the logic of a polly.

Here's another one of RMS's brain drainers from the WND thread discussing former Sec. of Energy Hodel's comments that NERC is sugar coating the utilities status:

RMS: Hodel doesn't know what he is talking about.

Sysman: RMS, Hodel is a former NERC Chairman!

Ya gotta wonder...

-- a (a@a.a), May 12, 1999.

Ha! At our Hospital, this guy *might* have been discovered after 4 months, but even then, everybody'd be too busy & nobody would've reported it for fear they'd have to fill out another form.

http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/news100b.htm

5/12/99 -- 8:11 PM

Dead four days, man's body found in hospital stairwell

DETROIT (AP) - A man who was missing for five days after failing to show up for a medical appointment was found dead in a hospital stairwell, police said.

Melvin Montack, 68, of Detroit was scheduled for treatment Thursday at St. John Northeast Community Hospital. A hospital housekeeper found his body Tuesday on a stairwell landing between the first floor and basement.

He had been dead about four days, authorities said.

Foul play is not suspected.

Hospital spokesman Greg Jakub would not comment on how the body could have gone so long without being discovered. Police said Montack air conditioning may have masked the smell of decomposition.
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xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), May 13, 1999.

Ha. That's pretty funn...er, interesting, Leska.

If it takes em four days to discover a dead guy lying on the stairs, it kind of makes you wonder how they'll do with their software, ah, deadlines.

-- a (a@a.a), May 13, 1999.