By Ellen O'Dwyer of RNZ
Auckland and Northland hospitals have been hit by IT problems today.
Health New Zealand said the outage affected the transfer of radiology images at hospitals across Auckland and Northland for two hours.
The Public Service Association said the outage was "major", and the system affected manages all medical images including X rays, CT and MRI scans.
The union's national secretary, Fleur Fitzsimons, said it was the second critical failure in less than a month and put patient safety at risk, after clinicians were forced to use pen and paper throughout the night in late January.
"The PACs system impacted by the outage is a critical function of our hospitals which clinicians rely on to access images so they can assess and treat patients needing urgent treatment in EDs, in operating theatres and elsewhere.
"The outage means clinicians and radiographers must communicate by text and phone to pass on vital information from scans. Without a doubt this will slow down treatment, compromising care."
The government needed to immediately review funding for health digital services and IT infrastructure, she believed.
A Health New Zealand spokesperson said the outage was resolved quickly without affecting patient services.
"During the outage standard back-up processes were used for the reviewing of radiology images."
Services were fully restored within two hours and patient care was not compromised, they said.
