NRC Information Notice: Problems encountered when manually entering treatment data

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This is a NRC Information Notice, dated March 24, 1999, but it involves a computerized medical radiation treatment process so I don't know if it will be considered off-topic for this site or not. I leave that decision to Rick. The reason I am posting this notice is because I think it demonstrates quite well how a small, previously unnoticed software error, combined with manual input, can have a serious impact on the intended process and the patient who depends on the proper functioning of radiological computer equipment.

Even though the problem addressed in the I.N. is not Y2K related, we all have read or heard quite a bit about "minor" Y2K glitches, or other problems which only need manual adjustments, following vendor instructions, to be corrected, and various "simple" upgrades, patches, etc. needing to be done by users. Most of the time these are discounted as having the ability to impact much of anything at all.

However, I am of the opinion that whenever you have lots of simultaneous "minor" little computer glitches over a global area, you're going to run across situations never encountered or envisioned. You're also going to have lots of people who will automatically assume any data coming out of a computer is accurate, whether it is or not. And all those minor glitches can have impacts on individuals and businesses which may seem far from slight to those affected.

This is not to say that there won't be any major-impact Y2K computer problems, just that even small computer problems should not be discounted as having the potential to create damaging consequences.

http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/GENACT/GC/IN/1999/in99009.txt

-- Anonymous, June 04, 1999


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