New survey sees no great healthcare ills
Y2K update
New survey sees no great healthcare ills
By DON LONG
Healthcare InfoTech Managing Editor
Among the fallouts of a crisis yet to happen in this case, Y2K are a rash of surveys measuring opinions concerning how serious the crisis might be.
In contrast to those surveys that have identified major problems or even the collapse of the nation’s healthcare system, a new poll from the Year 2000 Group (Washington) barely mentions healthcare.
The organization analyzed nearly 340 responses from an e-mail survey of professionals assumed to be familiar with the problem. The survey asked respondents to rank Y2K-related problems in the economy, business, infrastructure, society and government on a scale of escalating seriousness, 0 to 10.
In terms of business operation, a 57% majority predicted only "bumps and bruises," according to a summary of the results, with 35% seeing a "serious impact" and 9% fearing "a major business collapse."
In judging the effect on infrastructure, there was much more pessimism, with 80% predicting up to three-day brownouts or blackouts and "urban infrastructure, supply problems lasting 2 to 4 weeks."
While reflecting no overall great paranoia about Y2K fallout, the survey revealed what the group called a small "apocalyptic" group that tended to rank expected difficulties in the 8 to 10 range of seriousness.
According to the authors of the report, this reflects "fundamental divisions of opinion among Y2K professionals, analysts and observers." This division, they said, also was reflected in respondents’ written comments showing "deep divisions, with some dismissing Y2K as a problem already solved and others describing organizations far behind in their Y2K efforts (and usually covering it up)." Additionally, a large number of the written comments in the survey said that if Y2K problems did become serious, they might be of the self-fulfilling prophecy type.
The Year 2000 Group said results of this survey were generally less pessimistic than those of two 1998 surveys that were "much simpler." These appeared to reflect "all that was still unknown about the scope of Y2K, the general lack of awareness and concerns, and the amount of work that remained to be done at that time."
But the group also cautioned that "much remains to be done and some amount will not get done in time."
Britain says Y2K fear 'groundless'
Early this week, Britain attempted to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy aspect of Y2K, launching a national campaign saying that public fear of the millennium bug was largely "groundless."
In an interview with Reuters News Service, Margaret Beckett, a senior cabinet minister, said that the nation had "to be wary of . . . creating further problems ourselves."
The campaign was launched with release of a booklet titled "Facts Not Fiction," which promises continuation of infrastructure services and says that money including pensions will be safe.
Beckett insisted the National Health Service and police were working hard to be ready in time.
Court dismisses Y2K class action
A Cook County circuit court has dismissed a Y2K-related class-action lawsuit against Medic Computer Systems (Raleigh, NC) and IBM (Armonk, NY) by Mario Yu, MD, a physician in obstetrics and gynecology. Yu filed the suit on behalf of "all persons and entities" that purchased the bundled solution composed of IBM’s RS/6000 computer system containing the AIX operating system version 4.1 and the Medic application software version 7.0, dated July 7, 1997. The complaint dismissed by the court alleged that the bundled solution was not Y2K-compliant.
Medic, a member of the Misys Group of companies, said in a statement that it had worked "since early 1996" to achieve compliance.
Akcess2K reports major’ installations
Akcess2K (San Diego) reported that several major corporations have chosen its Delta-T Probe test system for testing Y2K compliance of microchips in embedded systems. The Delta-T Probe is a non-invasive program that electronically scans hardware to locate microchips that process date and time, and identify possible Year 2000 conflicts.
Among the companies that have purchased a Delta-T Probe diagnostic system are Birds Eye Wall’s (Unilever), Northrop Grumman Corp., British Aerospace, Guardian Properties, Sainsbury’s, and Victrex.
Embedded systems chips typically are very difficult to test because of the difficulty of isolating individual chips to verify the presence of time and date information. According to Akcess2K, testers also need to capture the relevant code to examine the time and date comparison method being used by the systems. It is estimated that approximately 90% of all micro chips manufactured are used in embedded systems.
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