REVIEW OF CAUSE FOR DISRUPTION TO ELECTRONIC MEDICAL SYSTEM ON 29 SEPTEMBER 2022

NOTICE PAPER NO. 1455
NOTICE OF QUESTION FOR ORAL ANSWER

FOR THE SITTING OF PARLIAMENT ON 20 OCTOBER 2022

Name and Constituency of Member of ParliamentMr Dennis Tan Lip FongMP for Hougang

 Question No. 3643

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Health (a) what is the cause of the disruption to the electronic medical system on 29 September 2022; (b) how long does the Government expect the review of the system design and architecture and the eventual system upgrade will take; and (c) pending a complete review and system upgrade, whether the Ministry is also setting any interim, shorter term goals for the reduction of downtime during outages.

Answer 

The disruption to the electronic medical records system on 29 September 2022 was the result of a software error in the firewall of a backup data centre.
The root cause has been fully rectified with improvements to the network and disaster recovery design. We will upgrade systems when this is assessed to be necessary. We are also reviewing our downtime and business continuity processes to minimise the impact during outages.