Hospital systems in Monroe County give updates on the impact of the worldwide information technology outage

Rochester, New York – An update on the impact of the global CrowdStrike Windows outage has been issued by Monroe County, and the county has also announced that several offices are closed to the general public today as a result of the outage.

The emergency communication systems, including 911, are currently running with backup systems. If you phone 911 and the call is not answered immediately, the county advised that you should not hang up on the other end of the line. Calls will be answered in the given order.

According to Representative Adam Bello of Monroe County, around 3,500 county devices were affected by the power outage. There are some of them that are being fixed by an automatic bug-fixing system, and there are others that are being fixed by county IT staff while they are also being deployed across the area.

According to Bello, more than 2,500 devices had been fixed as of 5:45 p.m., but it may take several days to complete the repairs after they have been completed.
Every one of the following is closed today:

• Monroe County Office Building
• Monroe County Clerk’s Office
• All Department of Motor Vehicles branches
• Department of Human Services on Westfall Road
• Department of Public Health public-facing operations, including vital records and all health clinics

Bello anticipates that all of these facilities, including offices and departments, will reopen on Monday.

DHS can be reached at (585) 442-1742 by anyone who is in need of assistance or housing in an emergency situation.

During this interim period, Monroe County has reported that the following functions are functioning normally thanks to backup systems:

• The county court system: all jurors should report
• Seneca Park Zoo
• County parks
• Department of Transportation
• Medical Examiner’s office
• Department of Environmental Services
• Probation
• Monroe Community Hospital

Andy Moore, the director of the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester Airport, stated that the airport is open; however, four of the eight airlines that operate out of the airport have experienced flight cancellations or delays. Continuously checking the status of their flights is something that every passenger is strongly advised to do.

It has been reported by the University of Rochester Medical Center that there has been no impact on emergency and inpatient care; however, there may be delays in the opening of certain urgent care centers and other services. Its statement is as follows:

URMC is responding to the global Crowdstrike software issue. Our electronic medical record system has not been affected, and safe patient care is ongoing. However, multiple computers that support clinical functions are down. A fix has been issued, and our IT team is working urgently to reinstate all impacted systems with a focus on maintaining patient care.
As of 9 a.m., emergency and inpatient care at Strong Memorial Hospital (and Highland Hospital) are continuing without interruption. MyChart is also available for patient communications. We are working to ensure that elective procedures and outpatient appointments also take place as scheduled. However, there will be delays in the opening of many Urgent Care Centers, lab draw stations, ambulatory practices, and patient call centers. We appreciate our patients’ understanding as we work to restore full operations as quickly as possible.
We will post frequent updates on MyChart, UR Medicine’s social media accounts, and the URMC Newsroom (and Highland Hospital newsroom) page during the day.

As of right now, all of Rochester Regional Health’s hospitals and outpatient facilities are fully operating, and the impact of the outage has been described as being modest.

Rochester Regional Health’s assessment of the worldwide CrowdStrike IT outage has shown minimal impact on our systems. All RRH hospitals and outpatient sites are fully operational. Patients with scheduled procedures and appointments should continue with those as planned. If you have any questions, please contact your provider’s office.

During the outage, Bello also cautioned everyone to be guarded against any efforts at phishing or other fraudulent activities.

“Bad actors do sometimes take advantage of vulnerabilities,” he said.

Those Monroe County employees who are considered essential should report to work, and those county employees who have the ability to work from home should do so.
As the county strives to restore all operations, Bello encourages the inhabitants of the county to be patient at this time.

“We just wanted folks to be assured that this team is working on this issue to assure particularly the health and safety of the community is at the forefront of this, and we’re working to address this issue,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll be back up in the next couple of days”