PETALING JAYA: The Total Hospital Information System (THIS) in the Sungai Buloh, Pandan, Ampang, Selayang and Serdang Hospitals was developed by different vendors instead of one principal vendor. This was revealed by Malaysia Medical Association (MMA) president Dr Krishna Kumar yesterday.

“They are not interconnected to the network and if there is a system crash or updated maintenance, it will not affect the other government hospitals or their networks. These hospitals have their own independent systems developed during their construction phase,” Dr Krishna said.

He was responding to The Edge Financial Daily’s article on Tuesday titled “Loss of records reveals weakness in IT system”, which described a server crash at the hospital causing patient data to be lost.

Dr Krishna said as the Sungai Buloh Hospital was one of the first IT hospitals in the country, it utilises an independent system developed by an independent vendor.

However, he downplayed any fears of a long-term problem.

“There really isn’t anything to worry about as long as the distant-back-up server is accessible. All IT hospitals should have this and the data is automatically updated every 24 hours. If there was a crash, at most the data loss will be only within a 24-hour period,” he said, adding that no doctors have contacted the association to complain about the loss of patient data. He also said a systems upgrade is underway.

“It’s in the pipeline. The ministry does not want Sungai Buloh to develop another system independently because it is in the process of developing one itself. It will cost more if Sungai Buloh updates on its own and then later a new system is installed to integrate all government healthcare facilities in the country.

“Right now, what the ministry is doing is focusing on the installation in non-IT hospitals. Once it has perfected the system in all non-IT hospitals, it will begin the installation process in the IT hospitals,” he said.

On Sept 25 there was an alleged server crash at the Sungai Buloh Hospital, which rendered the database of approximately 50,000 patients inaccessible.

Hospital director Dr Khalid Ibrahim said it happened due to scheduled server maintenance. However, up till last week some senior doctors still said some patient data could not be retrieved.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 23, 2014.