A good friend had surgery the other day and I’m sorry to say is not doing well.
As far as I know, the surgery itself went fine. It’s not like any surgical mistakes were made. Nonetheless, he’s experienced some troubling problems – paranoia, dizziness. He needs to be on oxygen now.
I have no idea what might be causing these problems. BUT the day of his surgery the hospital’s computer system was down. It was assumed that they’d been hacked.
So now I’m wondering – to what extent do surgical procedures and anesthesizing procedures use computers? (He had Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy which I believe uses a computer to exhibit images from the camera and assist with locating fragments of the kidney stones.) Are the computers in the operating room typically a separate system from the hospital’s general system? What impact if any would the problems with the hospital’s computer system have on how the surgeon and anesthesiologist performed their functions?
Sorry to hear about your friend. Hope they’re improving.
While the equipment may be computerized and networked, almost all of it operates independently and only transmits logging information to be stored. The obvious exception is teleoperating equipment where a physician or specialist is controlling some piece of surgical gear in the suite.
Independent computers in the OR are for displaying x-rays, scans and other information for the surgeon’s reference while operating, so while a network interruption for whatever reason would be an inconvenience or could even cause a procedure to be delayed, it wouldn’t cause any direct harm to the patient.
All that said, yes, computerized equipment could be targeted by malware, but that would specific knowledge of the brand and model of equipment being used. Code targeting anesthesia machines as a class or any other type only exists in the fevered minds of Hollywood script writers. About the best they could do to any unknown device would be to cause it to lock up or crash and the specialist in the room is specifically trained to deal with malfunctioning equipment.
My friend is doing much better. His O2 use at rest is down to 1L, and he’s walking some. Most importantly, he’s no longer delusional. It was very scary for his family and friends, but it looks now like he’ll make a complete recovery.