When the hospital goes back to paper
Ransomware closed a US medical centre’s clinics across a whole state this month. Every organisation needs a plan for working without systems.
A ransomware attack on the University of Mississippi Medical Center this month closed its clinics across the state, according to reports, and staff went back to paper records while systems were restored.
Going back to paper isn’t a failure. It’s the plan working, if there is one. The failure is when nobody knows how.
Questions worth answering before you need them, in any organisation:
- Which three or four activities must continue even with every computer off?
- Are the paper forms, phone lists and procedures printed and somewhere people can find them?
- Who decides to switch to manual mode, and who tells staff and customers?
- How will the paper records get back into the system afterwards?
Run it once as an exercise. Half a day with printed forms shows you more gaps than any document.