Microsoft Crash Throws BC Health Authorities Back to Analogue Age

On Friday computers around the world running the Microsoft operating system Windows 10 suddenly faced what is colloquially known as the "blue screen of death" before having their computer systems turn off and then slowly reboot.

This was not a cyberattack but a major tech failure.

That same day, cyber-security company CrowdStrike said an update it made to its antivirus software for Microsoft Windows caused the crash.

Many B.C. health authorities, hospitals, labs and urgent and primary care centres, were affected.

B.C.’s emergency dispatch system, as well as paramedic, wildfire and police services were not impacted, Premier David Eby said at a press conference Friday.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said most systems were back online by midday, though he added it might take a bit of extra time to smooth everything out.

Staff were required to transition to paperwork to run the health-care system while the systems started up again, he added.

Around 50,000 devices in the B.C. health-care industry were running Windows 10 and were impacted by the crash, with roughly 30,000 of those devices located in the Lower Mainland at Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health, Dix said. The other 20,000 were in Northern, Interior and Island health authorities, he added.

The First Nations Health Authority told The Tyee it was not impacted by the crash.

“We had a crack team of IT professionals who worked throughout the night to minimize the impact to the entire health-care industry,” Eby said.

Dix praised the efforts of all health-care workers who also worked through the night to “protect patient care,” such as ensuring surgeries went ahead and patients got fed on time.

“This is a tribute to what they do in the face of the challenges they face every day,” he added.

Dix said every facility was impacted differently. One urgent and primary care centre that was set to open for 8 a.m. was only delayed by seven minutes as the team transitioned to analogue, for example, he said.

“This shows how quickly staff moved to adapt,” he said.

When asked if anything could have been done to avoid this crash, Eby said at the provincial level there will be a post-mortem conducted by the Ministry of Health to look at what happened and how the systems and staff responded.

Microsoft and CrowdStrike will also be doing their own investigations, he added.

On Friday morning Northern, Fraser, Interior, Vancouver Coastal, Island and Providence health authorities ran the same notice on their websites about the CrowdStrike disruption.

“Our primary concern is the continuity and quality of patient care,” it read. “We have implemented contingency plans to ensure that our health-care services remain operational and that patient care is not disrupted to the best of our ability.”

The notice encouraged British Columbians to check their local health authority’s website for updates and to call their health-care providers for updates.

“Please do not call hospital switchboard at this time,” it concluded.

It’s not clear if pharmacies across the province were similarly impacted.

The Tyee contacted Rexall, Loblaws, Pharmasave and London Drugs to ask if their pharmacies had been impacted during the disruption.

Rexall, Loblaws and Pharmasave told The Tyee they had not been impacted. London Drugs, which was affected by a cyberattack earlier this year, also told The Tyee it had not been impacted.

In addition to impacting hospitals and health-care services, the outage also affected airlines, banks and grocery stores. Some travellers are still stranded, waiting for rescheduled flights.