Cyber Snafus & Data Breaches: How IT Failures Become Medical Errors
When we think of medical errors, we often imagine a misread lab result, a miscalculated dose, or a rushed procedure. But increasingly, the source of harm is buried in code—and in the assumptions we make about how technology works.
A recent paper published on arXiv exposes a hard truth: many Health Information Systems (HIS) are designed in ways that don’t reflect the reality of clinical environments. The result? Interruptions in care, diagnostic delays, lost revenue, and preventable harm—all of which ripple through the health system long after the system outage ends.
The Gap Between Design and Reality
Most HIS platforms are built with ideal workflows in mind—clean, linear, and compartmentalized. But hospitals and clinics are anything but linear. They’re dynamic, interrupt-driven, and filled with exceptions. When digital systems can’t keep up, the outcomes are messy.
Common gaps include:
Overly rigid documentation templates that bury clinical nuance
Fragmented platforms that fail to share data across departments or shifts
Slow or outdated interfaces that slow down clinicians under pressure
Inflexible downtime protocols that leave staff scrambling during outages
In many cases, HIS vendors don’t anticipate how their systems will be used in emergency or edge-case scenarios. And when that gap isn’t addressed, IT friction becomes clinical risk.
When Tech Chaos Turns Dangerous
The stakes go well beyond inconvenience:
Delayed diagnoses when lab results don’t route properly
Duplicate imaging or testing due to incomplete records
Medication errors when e-prescribing systems crash mid-order
Billing errors and denials that stem from incomplete documentation
These aren’t just workflow bugs. They’re patient safety issues masquerading as UX flaws.
And they’re compounded when cyberattacks or outages hit. Just look at the July 2024 CrowdStrike disruption that took down hundreds of hospital systems, leaving fetal monitors, imaging, and EHR platforms inaccessible for hours or days.
Data Breaches Amplify the Risk
The arXiv research also highlights that hospitals hit by cyber breaches experience a statistically significant increase in 30-day mortality—particularly in conditions like acute myocardial infarction (AMI), where speed is everything.
Why? Because recovery efforts divert resources, disrupt normal operations, and slow down life-saving workflows. In many hospitals, staff resort to paper, whiteboards, or workaround calls—not because it’s efficient, but because it’s the only option.
So What Can Be Done?
This isn’t a call to scrap technology. It’s a call to build better systems—and bridge the gap between design intent and clinical reality:
Involve clinicians in design and procurement decisions
Test platforms under real-world conditions, not just demo scripts
Create robust downtime protocols with active drills and support
Invest in interoperability, not just aesthetics or vendor lock-in
Treat cybersecurity as clinical safety, not just IT compliance
Final Thought
Every hospital relies on technology. But not every hospital understands how fragile that foundation can be. When information systems aren’t designed for reality—or aren’t resilient when chaos hits—they don’t just cause frustration. They contribute to medical errors.
It’s time to treat digital infrastructure like any other part of care delivery: vital, fallible, and in need of constant vigilance.
