Vaccine Megathread - See OP for threadbans

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Vaccine.hse.ie is a cloud platform and thankfully the HSE IT systems are that disjointed that many aren't linked. Sounds like this is limited to the rotunda at the moment.

Now if its spread then shutting down the whole system would be the first step as a pre caution. I'd be surprised if there wasn't more than 1 hospitals system impact.

I work in IT so trying to find out a bit more from different people

Literally just got a text from someone involved with the HSE via one of their contractors.

It's a bad one, defence forces cyber security are involved & talk of GCHQ giving assistance

Vaccine rollout not impacted

Van.Bosch wrote: »

Thankfully not having a integrated system for everything might help with this.

Yeah I've said for long enough that they should have one and the contractors that I know who do work for them have said the same. This time they're blessing themselves that systems are separated.

It's still bad but could have been a hell of alot worse

Strazdas wrote: »

But as I mentioned above, I don't think we've seen even a single vaccine related death in Ireland so far. Also, the focus seems to be far more on authorising J & J for younger people rather than AZ.

Do we have to see a death? The sister of the first woman to have an AZ related clot described her condition and it sounds like she will have a long road to recovery. I was fairly debilitated for months last year with post-viral chest issues and I still have lingering symptoms. But that sounds like a walk in the park compared to the recovery from a stoke. I'd choose months of inflammation over a stroke, tbh, I think most people would.

Van.Bosch wrote: »

Website seems to be still working. What system do they use for tracking cases I wonder?

Website should be fine, assuming it's hosted externally and won't hold any data.

Issue looks to be on its records systems more than anywhere else.

OwlsZat wrote: »

It's fairly common knowledge that we don't have a centralized hospital IT system like the NSH does or Australia, USA etc., does., St. James is the only hospital where records are digitalized. Hence all the young doctors want to work there.

In other hospitals we pay intern and junior doctors wages to manage vast paper files; writing letters of all sorts, and sieve through paper records looking for key words or requesting files from other hospitals for senior staff.

It's one of the biggest inefficiencies and wastes in the country. Ironically, it might help us here but it's still a shambles. Obviously, we should have a robust properly managed centralized IT system.

Nonsense, NCHD's don't want to work in specific hospitals because of their IT systems, they want to work in the best teaching hospitals where they will work with the best superiors and see a wide variety of cases.


NCHDS don't manage paper files of write letters either, there are admin people to do that for them.

OwlsZat wrote: »

It's fairly common knowledge that we don't have a centralized hospital IT system like the NSH does or Australia, USA etc., does., St. James is the only hospital where records are digitalized. Hence all the young doctors want to work there.

In other hospitals we pay intern and junior doctors wages to manage vast paper files; writing letters of all sorts, and sieve through paper records looking for key words or requesting files from other hospitals for senior staff.

It's one of the biggest inefficiencies and wastes in the country. Ironically, it might help us here but it's still a shambles. Obviously, we should have a robust properly managed centralized IT system.

I don't want to derail the thread as it's to do with vaccine rollout but that's not true at all.

But I'll leave it there as I'm not going to bring the thread off topic.

Sooo, when are we thinking the portal will open for the 40s ? Monday/Tuesday ?

As an aside, despite all the differing views on what NIAC should or shouldn't do, you do have to wonder what exactly they've been considering for the last week or more.

stephenjmcd wrote: »

I don't want to derail the thread as it's to do with vaccine rollout but that's not true at all.

But I'll leave it there as I'm not going to bring the thread off topic.

Why don't you enlighten me. If it's top secret information do share in PM. Love to enlighten the doctor I live with.

josip wrote: »

The portal won't open for the 40s until NIAC decide if they are going to change the age recommendation for J&J and AZ.

I'd wonder whether they might pause for a bit longer than that till they clear out Group 7.

is_that_so wrote: »

I'd wonder whether they might pause for a bit longer than that till they clear out Group 7.

This to me is the optimal route for them to take.

pc7 wrote: »

This attack will really delay things if HSE aren't back up and running soon, GPs cant refer to labs, tests etc. Portal will be least of their issues.

Not necessarily. The vaccine related cloud software isn’t effected by the ransomware attack. There’s no reason for it not to continue as normal.

is_that_so wrote: »

I'd wonder whether they might pause for a bit longer than that till they clear out Group 7.

Other posters on here earlier made the good point, that if they do decide to lower J&J and AZ for the 40s that they face a similar problem of pausing many of those 40s until the end of June in order to use the J&J when the bulk of the supply will arrive. Uncertainty of supply is the big risk with this.

For 40s, the delay will be a couple of weeks less than would have been for the 50s, and the risk of contracting will be lower, but the principle and the dilemma remains the same.

It's an easier sell if it's only the J&J that the 40s are on hold for, since they will end up fully vaccinated at the same time as Pfizer/Moderna 2 dosers.
But if 40 something year olds have to wait until June for an AZ dose, that's a much harder sell politically.

And this is no longer a medical decision, just look at the hospital case numbers.
This is now a political decision and if they can get the country opened back up safely in time for the summer, without copping any political flak (eg blood clots) for their chosen course.

MerlinSouthDub wrote: »

I see that https://vaccine.hse.ie/ is down

"This service is not available right now. Please try again later."

When something like this happens, you'd switch off everything, even if it was no/low risk.
You'd then identify which systems can be restarted, having done some analysis and checking.
The HSE systems will come back up incrementally over the next few weeks I'd imagine.
Cloud-based systems, whose security would be handled by a cloud provider and should be absolutely bullet proof, will probably come back later today.

OwlsZat wrote: »

s., St. James is the only hospital where records are digitalized.

"Common knowledge" is often incorrect knowledge, such as in this post.

Pandiculation wrote: »

That could simply be a precaution to ensure those systems are safe.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of world we’re living in. That attack isn’t likely to be random. It’s probably a demand for money because they know it’s life threatening and think that we’ll pay up.

You can be sure they know they’ve hijacked a healthcare system.

If you pay up once , they or others will just come back and do it again.