Some Hospital Services In Central, Southern New Jersey Disrupted By Tech Outage

CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY — Hospitals in parts of central and southern New Jersey have delayed scheduled patient procedures as a result of disruptions from the global CrowdStrike tech outage on Friday, officials said.

RWJ Barnabas Health, the largest health system in New Jersey, which has hospitals in Monmouth, Ocean and Mercer counties, was delaying scheduled patient procedures out of an abundance of caution, said Robert Cavanaugh, a spokesman for the health care network.

"RWJBarnabas Health is currently experiencing an impact to some computer and telecommunications systems as a result of the defective Microsoft update from Crowdstrike. Some clinical and patient-facing systems within the hospitals have been impacted," Cavanaugh said.

At Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, the outage was affecting the hospital's telephone system, he said. The systems information technology staff has received information from Microsoft on a fix for the coding and was making updates, Cavanaugh said.

In addition to Monmouth Medical Center, RJW Barnabas Health operates Community Medical Center in Toms River, Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood, RWJ Barnabas Health Hamilton and multiple other facilities.

Virtua Health in Burlington and Camden counties was experiencing disruptions in its patient check-in system but was not affecting essential patient care, said Daniel Morse, Virtua Health's communications director.

"Virtua Health has implemented its backup systems and policies to enable both hospital and outpatient services to continue safely and with minimal interruption," Morse said. "Our electronic health records system (Epic) and MyChart patient portal are both functioning, after some brief disruptions overnight. Our teams continue to work diligently to ensure patient safety, which is our top priority, and to avoid any inconvenience for those we serve."

AtlantiCare, which operates AtlantiCare Medical Center's facilities in Atlantic City and Egg Harbor Township, said in a posted statement that it was experiencing disruptions as well.

"AtlantiCare is diligently working to restore all systems to full operation. We anticipate there will be delays in service, but our critical patient services are operational," the statement said.

A message seeking additional information was not immediately answered.

Not every system was experiencing disruptions.

Hackensack Meridian Health, which operates Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, Bayshore Medical Center in Holmdel, Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, Ocean University Medical Center in Brick and Southern Ocean Medical Center in Manahawkin, was not affected by the outage.

"We’re a strong Google partner so hospital operations and patient-facing systems are not directly impacted," said Ben Goldstein, director of public relations. "We continue to evaluate all of our systems."

At CentraState Healthcare System, which operates CentraState Medical Center in Freehold Township, there were no disruptions, said Joy Lee-Calio, director of public relations and communications.

"Similar to organizations across the globe, we are continuing to assess the situation," she said. "At the moment clinical services remain operational and the safe delivery of high-quality patient care remains our focus."

Patient care at Cooper University Health Care has not been impacted, said Wendy Marano, a Cooper spokesperson.

"We are checking with our vendors to see if there are any secondary systems used by other departments that may be affected," she said. "But in terms of patient care, it's business as usual."

Jefferson Health's operations haven't been impacted by CrowdStrike, a spokesperson told Patch.

June Bakan contributed to this report.