It was a 2 hour ambulance bypass.
That's nothing. Seriously.
They weren't turning away people at the door, just sending ambulances elsewhere.
Look at when it happened, 1am.
They would have what, one, maybe two if they're lucky, people working at the admit desk at that time.
Yeah, it might back up a bit., but it shouldn't.
This was a failure of hospital policy more than an IT system failure.
disclaimer: I work at a HIMSS level 6 rated hospital.
(I've even had the experience of being an inpatient recently. Knowing the system, I still said "Wow! This is how things need to be run".)
Almost everything is computerized.
Everything is backed-up and redundant, and if the whole thing went down, you wouldn't be coming to us because there'd be a huge hole in the ground.