Patients were told by hospitals and health care providers across the United States on Friday morning that a global technology outage had downed some information technology systems, resulting in canceled surgeries and other procedures, though hospitals emphasized that emergency departments remained open. Some major hospital systems were affected, including the Kaiser Permanente medical system, which runs dozens of hospitals and hundreds of medical offices in the western United States and elsewhere in the country. Kaiser Permanente activated its national command center around 7:30 a.m. Eastern to address “widespread” effects of the outage on its system, said Steve Shivinsky, a spokesman for the health provider. The outage was affecting “all of our hospitals,” said Mr. Shivinsky, who called the situation “unprecedented.”Banner Health, a large system based in Phoenix that operates hospitals and health care centers in six states, said that it closed clinics, urgent care centers and other outpatient facilities on Friday morning, but that hospitals would remain open for inpatient care and medical emergencies.

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Persons: Steve Shivinsky, ”, Shivinsky Organizations: Kaiser Permanente, Permanente Locations: United States, Banner, Phoenix