Starts out... balanced... with concerns.

Then the very last little entry mentions a little computer glitch at the end of the hospital's fiscal year, March 31, 1999.

A small one, small hospital. How many "small" hospitals are there?

Diane

Hospitals say they're ready for the millennium change
TOM KIRCHOFER, Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 28, 1999

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/06/28/national0056EDT0426.DTL

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

(06-28) 00:56 EDT BOSTON (AP) -- The end of the year is nearing and you have a few days off at New Year's. This might be the time, you think, to get that aching rotator cuff repaired or take care of the tummy tuck you've always wanted.

Think again. Do you really want to be in a hospital full of complicated electronic gizmos on the very day the Y2K computer problem is supposed to strike? The day much of the computer world could go dark?

Most hospitals insist they're not worried, even though they're crammed with sensitive equipment that would seem vulnerable to the Year 2000 glitch.

Hospitals also rely on thousands of suppliers who could be individually vulnerable to Y2K, jeopardizing delivery of everything from Jell-O and bedpans to electricity and anesthesia.

The Y2K problem stems from the inability of older computers to tell the difference between the years 2000 and 1900. The fear is that computers nationwide which control electricity, water, banking information, prison locks, payrolls, elevators and gas pumps will shut down when they read ``00,'' resulting in widespread chaos.

In fact, the industry says it has been working for years to make sure New Year's Day is just another day in hospitals everywhere.

The American Hospital Association says 99 percent of hospitals are fully Y2K compliant, or will be by the end of the year.

``Hospitals will be prepared because it's an issue of patient safety,'' says Fred Brown, AHA chairman.

Still, some health care providers are taking precautions.

A recent issue of Horizons, the newsletter of health insurer SecureHorizons, advised patients not to schedule elective procedures for the first few days of January 2000.

``We think it wise to take an `expect the best; prepare for the worst' approach,'' Horizons wrote.

The AHA calls such steps unnecessary.

``I would be very comfortable being a patient in a hospital on Jan. 1,'' Brown says. [Yes but... does he fly too?]

The AHA said that even if some Y2K-related problems arise, Jan. 1 is both the holiday and a Saturday, a time when few elective procedures would be scheduled.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed Y2K readiness among state public health agencies late last year. It looked at 10 public health functions potentially vulnerable to Y2K problems, such as lab equipment or biomedical devices with date-sensitive microchips. Scores of critical machines, including defibrillators, cardiac monitors and heart-bypass machines are sensitive to time and date.

The survey found readiness averaging 77 percent among the 29 states that responded, which represented75 percent of the U.S. population. The CDC repeated the survey this month and expects to announce the results by late July or early August.

Less than 1 percent of hospitals responding to an AHA survey expressed concern about not being prepared for Y2K, but 61.9 percent cited lack of information from suppliers as the No. 1 barrier to achieving total Y2K compliance.

The AHA says it's working with the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that hospitals get that information. An FDA site on the World Wide Web now offers compliance data on medical products from thousands of companies.

Still, there is some nervousness out there.

When querying critical suppliers, hospitals say they sometimes find themselves dealing with vendors' escape clauses.

``In the letters that companies send back to us, they want to give you an indication on how Y2K-compliant they are, but they leave a little gray area because they rely on others as well,'' says Christopher Bunnell, Y2K coordinator at Franklin Memorial Hospital in rural Farmington, Maine.

At Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, information technology specialists began preparing the hospital for Y2K in 1997 and more recently began working with suppliers of critical services to ensure the lights stay on and the water flows.

``Utilities was a big concern for us,'' hospital spokesman Jim Noga says. A meeting with water and power company officials helped ease his mind. ``My confidence level has gone up substantially in terms of their readiness.''

Outside the realm of crucial care systems, the nation's massive health care bureaucracy is also making preparations.

About half the Medicare providers surveyed this year by the Department of Health and Human Services say their billing and medical records systems are already Y2K compliant. Of those not yet ready, more than 90 percent of hospitals and 70-84 percent of other provider groups believe their billing systems will be compliant by Dec. 31.

On the government side, HHS reports that 282 of 287 critical systems were compliant as of April 30. That apparently ensures that the agency which reimburses doctors and hospitals hundred of millions of dollars annually for Medicare and Medicaid expenses will be able to keep the money flowing when the calendar flips to January.

But in Rockport, Maine, the Y2K problem hit early. The Penobscot Bay Medical Center's computer for accounts payable went on the fritz at the end of the hospital's fiscal year, March 31, 1999.

Mary Sargent, the hospital's Y2K coordinator, says she never knew what exactly choked the computer, but workers had to write checks by hand for more than two weeks.

``We're back to normal now,'' she says.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 28, 1999

Answers

Ah, sorry... re-post... different emphasis.

Hospitals Ready for Millennium Bug (Mild Mannered Reporter, Clark@super.duper, 1999-06-28)

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 0010ms

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 28, 1999.