Alberta Health Services (AHS) continues to experience a network outage, which is impacting services across the province as the system plunges into chaos, however the issue seems to be solved.."The network outage that impacted AHS earlier today is being resolved," AHS Executive Director of Issues Management and Communications Kerry Williamson told the Western Standard.."Services are carefully being restored with priority being given to critical patient care areas, such as emergency departments.".Health Link 811 is fully available. Wait times are back to normal times. However, there will still be some delays.."Sites continue to use downtime procedures as systems come back online," Williamson said.Some non-urgent surgeries were postponed as a precaution to ensure emergency and urgent surgeries could continue.."We are in the process of rebooking those impacted patients. We are reviewing the network outage to determine root cause so that we can avoid such issues in the future. We appreciate everyone’s patience.".EMS dispatch is functioning with back-up procedures. In an emergency, people should continue to call 911.."Our teams are currently using downtime procedures, which are immediately put in place if an electronic system isn’t available. This ensures we can continue to provide patient care," AHS Executive Director of Issues Management and Communications Kerry Williamson told the Western Standard Morning..It is currently unclear what is causing the outage. It began early on Monday..READ MORE: AHS experiencing a province-wide network outage."As a precaution, AHS is postponing some elective, non-urgent surgeries until the outage is resolved," Williamson said..All patients will be contacted directly, and procedures will be rebooked as soon as possible.."Emergency and urgent surgeries are continuing," Williamson said.."Community lab services are also being impacted and will be reduced at some sites. Urgent results are communicated by fax and/or telephone.".To accommodate manual procedures, hospitals will be focusing on critical and stat laboratory requests only.."Routine laboratory appointments must be rescheduled," Williamson said..Health Link 811 continues to be available in a limited capacity.."Wait times will be longer than usual as we restore full service," Williamson said..A temporary AHS website is available at www.ahsnow.ca.EMS dispatch is functioning with back-up procedures and calls to 911 are not affected. In an emergency, people should continue to call 911..An update will be provided when all services have been restored..More to come...
