BJC HealthCare hobbled by systemwide computer outage that lasted 20 hours

BJC HealthCare, the area's largest hospital provider, experienced a computer outage lasting 20 hours that temporarily disrupted its operations systemwide. The loss of computer services started at 3 p.m. Tuesday and ended about 11 a.m. Wednesday. The outage blocked access to a slew of functions, including email, electronic medical records, registration and scheduling systems, at all of BJC's 13 hospitals, Rich Liekweg, the hospital system's executive vice president, told the Post-Dispatch. "Any time you have a system go down for any extended period of time it's a concerning event," Liekwig said. "But that's also why we have contingency plans."