On Thursday, a widespread outage to Microsoft systems took down computers in health systems around the globe, leading many to cancel non-urgent medical appointments and surgeries as they encouraged patients to make plans for disrupted travel and delays in care.
“A major worldwide software outage has affected many of our systems at Mass General Brigham,” the hospital system shared in a statement on Friday. “Due to the severity of this issue, all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits are canceled today.” Dana-Farber Cancer Institute instructed all patients with scheduled appointments to stay home, and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, procedures requiring anesthesia were suspended.
An email notification to staff at Duke University Health System said the outage has impacted “computers and clinical systems” throughout the health system. The issue appears to have stemmed from a software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which disabled computers running Microsoft Windows.
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