If I never have to deal with hospital IT systems again

[reno316]

I will die a happy man.

That is all.

[DeusExMachina]

I had a coworker tell me a time he had to put on scrubs and go reset an access point in the middle of open heart surgery, and the guy's life depended on it.

I don't need that kind of stress in IT.

[reno316]

These guys seem to have taken the extreme approach to balancing usability with security. You can probably guess which end.

[aahorn]

government regulations may have forced them to lean to the extreme security side

[reno316]

government regulations may have forced them to lean to the extreme security side

Nah, just made them paranoid. Their security measures are FAR beyond any of my other 1500+ clients...

[DeusExMachina]

That sort of paranoia is everywhere. I spoke with a counterpart at a library district who said their printer/fax/copier/scanning multifunction machines are not on the network, because it would be too much of a security risk. So the only thing library patrons can do is make copies.

Kind of a big hit to usability, as well as a waste of money, just to avoid an imaginary risk.

[reno316]

Yeah. The "risk" that lots of folks believe exists is mostly in their head, while they ignore the REAL risks to their system.

[jerrymrc]

I will die a happy man.

That is all.

You called? Sys Admin for two hospital systems. I started in Biomed but had to fully cross over and now get to do both while our normal IT guys make the same but have 1/2 to worry about.

HL7 is HL7 right? BTW, if ya think normal medical systems are fun do it in a DOD environment.

[reno316]

You called? Sys Admin for two hospital systems. I started in Biomed but had to fully cross over and now get to do both while our normal IT guys make the same but have 1/2 to worry about.

HL7 is HL7 right? BTW, if ya think normal medical systems are fun do it in a DOD environment.

It's not so much an HL7 issue as it is a "No, we won't re-write our software to fit your security policy. Open the damn port between the two servers if you want your $100,000 + software to work. If you don't, it won't work. I don't care, since we've already cashed your check..."

[68Charger]

I feel for ya, I haven't touched Hospital/Medical systems, but I work in the financial network business...

Security is paramount, reliablity/redundancy/diversity is critical to them, and Latency is also their bread and butter (if they're a HFT)

if the system is that critical, it should have redundancy and monitoring built in, so you don't start a surgery without a backup in place & known to be functioning... a backup is only good if you KNOW it's working- so you have to monitor it just as much as the primary path.