By State Senator Saud Anwar
For weeks, a significant portion of our state has been significantly inconvenienced, even put at risk, by an increasingly disturbing trend. For nearly the entire month of August, Eastern Connecticut Health Network and Waterbury Health, which control several state hospitals and medical offices, have been suffering the effects of a cyberattack that have effectively paralyzed their technological capabilities, shutting down their information technology databases.
These are just some of 25 hospitals across the country that have had their operations impacted, and the significance of 25 hospitals being unable to provide care to their fullest extent cannot be understated. While treatment of patients is ongoing and emergency departments continue to operate, medical professionals are experiencing significant issues due to lack of connectivity through electronic systems.
Hospitals including Manchester Memorial, Rockville General and Waterbury Hospital cannot offer the full outpatient medical imaging or blood drawings, with an unclear deadline or end to the outages. Even urgent care centers under the network have been forced to open alternative phone systems for patient contacts.
The continuing advances of technology in our world, and especially medical technology, have provided new opportunities to improve patient health and provide healthier outcomes for patients in need. In the current times our dependency on technology also includes increasing access to remote work, electronic or e-consulting services and electronic multidisciplinary teams, almost universal electronic patients’ medical records, online scheduling, electronic radiologic images and other lab tests, robotic surgeries and remote cardiac monitoring to list a few. Technology has become the single most critical part of outpatient and inpatient services and communications.
Our increasing reliance on technology also poses significant risks. The current situation reinforces that our systems need more safeguards. This includes recognizing that in general, health service personnel have relatively less experience in working remotely, digital literacy, cybersecurity, leaving the sector vulnerable to phishing, cyberattacks, such as malwares. We need to strengthen security in our health care systems, especially in information technology. That need is far from exclusive to health care, of course. Nearly every day, we learn about major corporations, town and city governments, and organizations of all kinds compromised by phishing and hacking attacks. It is also a reminder that we need to invest in, and build up, our systems with the resources we have.
In all fields, but especially medical education, advanced technology can become the basis of building better, efficient, and effective healthcare. The next generation of healthcare workforce are at risk of being far more technology dependent in their management unless intentional efforts are made in curriculum and training and experiential learning to allow one to function with and without technology. Technology is a useful tool, but tools can break, and not all tools are useful in every situation. Medical professionals – and professionals in several additional fields – must be able to thrive and aid others based on their skills, utilizing the basic value of collaboration to find successful medical management.
It is my hope that in the coming days, the issues roiling Prospect Health offices and preventing patients from receiving their fully needed care are abated and the systems there will fully recover. It is also my hope that the trials and issues experienced during this challenging time will serve as a reminder and acknowledgement that our potential over-reliance on a limited part of our larger tool-set can leave us vulnerable to extended issues that can lead to real-world pain brought onto innocents. In the sense that diversity of opinion, of population and of mindsets makes us stronger, diversity of skills can prevent disaster. As the classic phrase suggests, a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes is better than a master of one.
Dr. Saud Anwar, a Democrat, represents Connecticut’s Third State Senatorial District comprised of the towns of East Hartford, Ellington, South Windsor and East Windsor. He is also a pulmonologist affiliated with Manchester Memorial Hospital.
