over thesoftwares useful life.For example, at Hawaiian Electric Company (HECo), the Y2K project teamidentified significant problems with its energy management system (EMS). EMS is thebrain of the power distribution system at all electric companies. This system is used toremotely control transmission system breakers, coordinate power generation schedules,compensate for large transmission line breaks, and provide protection against voltage, andcurrent and frequency transients. HECo and their EMS system vendor determined thatEMS would crash on the rollover to January 1, 2000. This would have, in turn, resultedin HECos transmission network crashing, and by default, a major power outage and lossof all generating capacity.Besides medical devices, embedded chips are hard wired into other pieces ofequipment that may be critical to patient services or hospital operations. This equipmentis often the responsibility of the vendor, not the hospital. These systems include 1) firealarm systems, including detection, sending/ receiving, and suppression units, 2) securitysystems, including sending/receiving units, video and surveillance systems, and badgereaders, 3) telecommunications equipment, including telephone switching equipment,emergency call management systems, pagers, and cellular phones, 4) buildinginfrastructure, including HVAC, energy management and lighting controls, emergencygenerators and lighting, uninterruptible power supplies, and elevators. Major Hospital isamong a number of the worlds health care providers that will participate in every effort tominimize any and all malfunctions related to the Y2K problem.Gas companies are contacting their suppliers and service providers to determinethe status of their year 2000 compliance projects and will be developing contingency plansif their efforts do not meet certain goals. An inventory of computer systems, embeddedsystems, and resources has been developed and prioritized according to t...
