Crashed IT system at CUH ‘will take months to replace’

The chief executive of one of the country’s biggest hospitals — Cork University Hospital — has confirmed it will be "a couple of months" before new equipment is installed to replace its laboratory IT system server which crashed on five occasions this year.

Speaking at the HSE South Health Forum yesterday, Tony McNamara said a six-person project team was working on putting in place a new €600,000 server which should “obviate future breakdowns”. He said there were also contingency plans in the event of further failures.

Catastrophic failure of the laboratory information management system (LIMS) during the year forced doctors to inform some patients that they could not stand over certain test results and also forced the hospital to put the State Claims Agency on notice that it could face liabilities.