Hospitals report IT disruption due to Nashville explosion

The Dec. 25 explosion of an RV in Nashville, Tenn., disrupted AT&T and T-Mobile services, leading to outages at hospitals.

The blast significantly damaged an AT&T building on 2nd Avenue in Nashville and affected connection points for regional internet services and local wireless, internet and video, according to the company. The explosion knocked out some of the company's backup power generators as well and caused service disruptions in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama that were ongoing as of Dec. 28, although a majority of services have been restored.

Gallatin, Tenn.-based Sumner Regional Medical Center experienced network and system outages due to the incident, according to a Dec. 25 Facebook post. The hospital reverted to paper records when it lost access to the EHR and other operating systems.

"We prepare for situations like this and moved immediately to paper records. There has been no disruption to the delivery of patient care and no cause for concern for this temporary issue," the Facebook post reads. The IT systems have since been restored, the hospital confirmed on Dec. 28.

South Charleston, W.Va.-based Thomas Health also reported IT issues related to the AT&T network hub damage. The connection between Thomas Health and its data center was affected, shutting down all information management operations at the hospital and physician offices, including the EHR, according to interim director of marketing and public relations Eriel Scott.

The hospital shifted connections to the backup data center in Texas and restored connectivity by midnight on Dec. 27. The hospital was in downtime procedures for around 36 hours and all systems are now functioning as normal.