Charlie does not let Lisa near those scary ultra loud crinkly biodegradeable Sun Chips bags.

Bengie 10 hours ago
The technology needed to do their fundamental jobs were unaffected. They refused to accept new patients because it was too inconvenient. It's a risk management issue. Not having your system's up and running in order to track patients can lead to more mistakes, and mistakes can be deadly. But if you're talking about an ER, there is plenty they can do without their network working. The issue is they have no back-up plan. It's like they just gave up. Ohh no, the internet went out, I think I'll just curl up and die, I don't know how to function without it.
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dackroyd 4 hours ago
"They refused to accept new patients because it was too inconvenient."
Or because they would be unable to get the patients records to be able to see if they had any allergies to medicines.
"The issue is they have no back-up plan. "
The backup plan was diverting patients to an alternative hospital.
For some patients it might be better to start treatment at the nearest hospital. But it's not possible to know the right choice in emergency situations.
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guruevi 4 hours ago
In the US hospitals are required to have backup plans for all technology downtime.
Where Iâ(TM)ve seen it implemented this is done by working off paper and having phone-based access to an isolated EHR system (they run from a data backup on an airgapped system) to request records.
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Malays2 bowman 5 minutes ago
"you're talking about an ER, there is plenty they can do without their network working. The issue is they have no back-up plan. It's like they just gave up. Ohh no, the internet went out, I think I'll just curl up and die, I don't know how to function without"
Wow! I would not want to depend on them
when a major disaster strikes and comms
gets wiped out.
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shadowrat 13 hours ago
However did we manage to treat patients 40 years ago without computers...
I would imagine we have computer technology that allows us to keep someone alive that we didn't have in the past. In the past, that person would have simply died sooner.
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Mr. Dollar Ton 13 hours ago
Badly. Two of my family members were saved last year and two years ago from things that were lethal in the 80s. A failure of this kind is not a reason to abandon the technology, but to improve it.
And a major step would be to finally introduce product liability for software bugs that create this kind of situation, which will change the tradeoff between that shiny new half-assed feature and security towards a more sane proportion.
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jellomizer 12 hours ago
Many of these patients died 40 years ago.
40 years ago without these advanced computers and communication many of these procedures would have been extremely risky to perform.
Also a lot of time was wasted in moving of paperwork and a lot of useful information wasn't available.
They didn't manage to treat these patents 40 years ago. They often died in the attempt, or were decided to be not get treated, and allowed to get worse without an attempt to fix the problem.

 
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masasuka 12 hours ago
Not necessarily, from the sounds of it this was the equivalent of a hospital having a fire/flood in the patient records room. File folders of patient data, allergies, medical history, etc... would have been lost in that case as well, and doctors would be guessing as to whether or not 'medical sedative X' is going to knock out the patient in prep for surgery, or kill the patient.
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jellomizer 12 hours ago
Compared to modern Electronic Records, the Paper Records were much less detailed. A doctor if requesting the medial records, will take the top few pages, While an Ill patient could have a large stack of pages of useful details. As well as Drug to Drug interactions, Allergies...
Now hospitals should have proper downtime procedures in place. This doesn't sound like they really didn't have that inplace.
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ljw1004 12 hours ago
However did we manage to treat patients 40 years ago without computers...
Inefficiently, and with a vastly higher rate of injury and death due to "medical accidents" (e.g. administering the wrong medicine)
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Aristos Mazer 12 hours ago
Often we didn't. People died at a much higher rate at hospitals in the past than they do today.
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ebonum 11 hours ago
Billing may have killed him. If the hospital couldn't admitted him as a patient and track treatment for the purpose of creating a bill, the hospital may have decided it was better to send him on his way rather than take the unacceptable risk of not being able to fully bill for his treatment.
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nomadic 9 hours ago
In Germany?
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guruevi 4 hours ago
Yes. In Europe itâ(TM)s not uncommon to have to pay the ambulance or hospital before admittance. This practice is illegal in the US.
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Malays2 bowman a few seconds ago
"Yes. In Europe itÃ(TM)s not uncommon to have to pay the ambulance or hospital before admittance. This practice is illegal in the US."
Yikes! Do I detect a flaw in Europe's perfect healthcare system?
Yes, ours (US) still sucks major ass in comparison, but Europe's isn't the big shiny knight on the proud steed as it's often made out to be.
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thegarbz 11 hours ago
However did we manage to treat patients 40 years ago without computers...
Yeah and a fuckton more died back then than do now.
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John Cavendish 8 hours ago
40 years ago cars also had no computers, yet try to use a nowadays car after removing a computer from it, when they're not equipped with carburettors anymore.
You see the point, times change, and tools change as well, hospitals nowadays have no means to maintain paperwork for patients, however would be good to have some contingency for emergency just in case.
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SuperDre 7 hours ago
Well, a lot more people just died back then because there wasn't a treatment/cure...
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Maxo-Texas 4 hours ago
We didn't. World population levels were still under half what they are today when computers got started.
Hospital staffing levels were much higher to handle administration, fill out and file physical cards, and so on.
Not just hospitals but many aspects of our lives today would be much slower, more labor intensive, more error prone, and more expensive without computers