Virginia hospital equipment failure sparks network outage, postponed surgeries: 4 details

Fauquier Health in Warrenton, Va., reported an equipment malfunction on Dec. 9 that caused a temporary network outage.

Four details:

1. The hospital is still providing urgent and emergent care, but elective procedures have been postponed until the issue is resolved.

2. Fauquier Health also closed its internal medicine, general surgery and multispecialty clinic offices. It plans to post on social media when normal business hours resume.

3. Because of technical issues with the phone lines, the hospital set up an emergency phone number to field urgent calls.

4. The outage was not caused by a cyberattack, CEO Chad Melton told Fauquier Now. "The system was due to be replaced next year and decided to quit early," he said.