Hospital’s Computers Not Immune to Y2K Bug

Despite repeated assurances that vital government computers would be ready for the new millennium, county officials now say replacement of the county hospital’s main computer is so far behind schedule that they need more money to hire a special team to fix the problems.

Facing an unforgiving Dec. 31 deadline, the officials are asking the Board of Supervisors for $600,000 to replace the county hospital’s administrative system so it will avoid a Y2K snafu that could disrupt patient care.

The supervisors really won’t have much choice when they consider that request today, because installation of the new computer system is behind schedule and the county must scramble to beat the clock ticking toward 2000.

“We’re supplementing existing staff to make sure it is done on time,” said J. Matthew Carroll, head of information systems for the county. “As the year 2000 watchdog, I’m recommending this very strongly. These are revenue-generating systems for the hospital. We can’t mess around, we have to get them in.”

With the extra money, the county would hire a team of experts from a nationally known consulting firm, he said. If all goes right, installation should be complete by early December.

The money will bring the total tab to $4.5 million for a new computer system at Ventura County Medical Center and a network of 22 clinics that serve 300,000 poor and uninsured patients a year.

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The hospital project has been the most expensive and troublesome to update of the county’s 99 major computer systems, Carroll said. The price tag for the rest of the county Y2K updates is less than $9 million, he said.

Nearly all of the other systems have been fully updated so 1999 will click over without problems to 2000, instead of 1900, he said. Many computers have traditionally read only the last two digits of the year, so without the update they cannot tell the difference between 1900 and 2000.

“This is the master computer that runs the hospital,” Administrator Samuel Edwards said. “This new system has to do with patient registration, patient services and it coordinates the billing. It’s how we document what we do. It’s a gigantic system, and we’ve been struggling to put it in place.”

The headaches began in 1998, when the Massachusetts-based company that sold the hospital its current system in 1990 informed the county that it would not make the changes necessary for Y2K compliance. Instead, Keane Inc. offered to sell a new system, Carroll said. But the county selected another bidder, HBOC & Co., in January.

By July 1, HBOC had installed some key parts of the new hospital administration system: the subsystems that admit patients, manage materials and supplies, bill patients and their insurers and pay employees. The first county health clinic went online Oct. 1, and the rest will be converted in the months to come, Edwards said.

One of the key subsystems not yet operational provides information about patients to the hospital’s laboratory, radiology and pharmacy clinics.

The software that allows the new hospital administration system to “talk” with the Meditech patient care system also is not up and running.

That is partly because HBOC has lost a number of employees working in Ventura County in recent months, Carroll said.

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County Health Care Agency employees have tried to fill the void by installing the new system themselves. But some of them have been pulled away to create a new billing system for the embattled Mental Health Agency, which authorities say violated Medicare billing rules from 1990 to 1998.

Now they need help.

“The HCA runs a very lean ship, and so they attempted to do it with existing staff,” Carroll said. “It was an ambitious attempt.”

Edwards said the whole thing has been difficult for hospital employees.

“Any time you change a computer system it’s horrendous,” he said. “It takes a tremendous amount of training during the usual flow of business.”

The typical patient, however, could probably never tell that the change was underway, he said. “It’s transparent to the patient,” Edwards said. “I’d bet the typical patient could never tell what is going on.”