By GREG NIKKEL, of the Weyburn Review
The coming of the year 2000 is proving to be a headache for most anyone who owns computers or computerized equipment, and no one knows this better than the computer experts for the Weyburn area school divisions and South Central Health District.
In a continuing series of articles by the Weyburn Review on how companies and organizations are dealing with the dreaded Millennium Bug, or Y2K as it's referred to, those responsible for the dozens upon dozens of computers, computer networks and long lists of equipment with embedded computer chips in the city's schools and health facilities share some of what is involved in making sure everything still works right when the calendar turns over to Jan. 1, 2000.
The process at the South Central Health District began last May, as Gene Schmidt, director of materiels management, was appointed to head up the Y2K committee, and the compiling and research of information began.
Each department was given a sheet onto which they had to detail a complete inventory of every piece of equipment under their care. The equipment pieces were categorized as to their importance to their function in the health-care system if they should fail, and were listed into their respective risk levels: critical, high, medium and low.
"A lot of medical equipment came in as critical," said Schmidt, who then put all of the lists of inventory onto a database, including their level of priority and risk, model and serial number, name of manufacturer, the supplier and so on.
Since the database has been put together, all of the suppliers have been contacted, and most have supplied statements identifying whether their equipment is Y2K-compliant or in need of upgrading or replacement.
"Health Canada has set some pretty stringent guidelines as to what compliancy means for health-care equipment. If the pieces aren't compliant, we have to find out what needs to be done. We've identified a few pieces of equipment that have to be replaced," said Schmidt, adding there are only two or three manufacturers they haven't been able to reach yet.
Many manufacturers are supplying upgrades for equipment, some at no cost. Test procedures are being obtained from manufacturers in order to check out the equipment, said Schmidt, and larger health districts (like Regina's) have been able to assist as they have already developed test procedures for medical equipment.
In the meantime, the Y2K committee has decided that all critical and high-risk equipment, particularly crucial pieces of medical equipment, will be tested for compliancy independently, even if the manufacturer has told the health district the equipment is compliant.
The Regina Health District's bio-tech people will be coming sometime in March or April to conduct tests of these pieces of equipment, said Schmidt, as "they've been in contact with numerous vendors and are familiar with the kind of equipment we're using, the whole range of medical equipment."
The final part of planning for Y2K will be drawing up of contingency plans, said Schmidt, as every department is to have a strategy in place of what will be done in the event any important functions or equipment fails to operate in the new year.
"With departments like payroll and accounting, we want to ensure the financial operations are right on. Same with the physical plant operations. SaskEnergy and SaskPower are looking after their operations, but what happens if something sneaks by and we have intermittent power outages? What are our contingency plans? If we don't have power at some of our facilities, we have to be ready for that," said Schmidt.
The district-wide effort to deal with Y2K has taken a lot of time on the part of health district personnel, he said, particularly by the committee he's heading, comprised of eight employees of the health district, and most recently joined by four board members as a subcommittee.
The efforts have been considerable for Darryl Postnikoff as well, as he is the head computer resource person for the Weyburn School Division No. 97 and Comprehensive School, and part of the problem is not knowing if everything he's been told is right.
"The big question is what does Y2K really mean? With no standards, you can run a whole bunch of testing systems, and you always come up with something different. Every company is coming out with a different definition of what passes and what fails as Y2K-compliant. It's really mind-boggling," said Postnikoff.
For the school division, the board offices have had new upgrades to the payroll system and the computer software. In the schools, everything from the telephone system to the bell and intercom systems have to be checked out, as well as the computer systems in each school, and the library system at the Comp has been upgraded as well.
There are new administration programs in the schools, and the Comp has had a new attendance and marks package installed for the staff's computers.
"We know there's going to be a problem in the year 2000. Computers fail all the time, so I especially think something is going to happen in the year 2000," said Postnikoff.
All of the elementary schools now have the ADSL high-speed Internet lines, and the Comp is currently being wired for it as well, along with the board office.
The effort isn't quite as wide spread for the Central and Separate School Divisions, said Crandall Hrynkiw, education director for both systems of schools.
He said they have checked out the systems in each of the schools, such as bell systems, timers, heating systems and exterior lights. Some of the timers run mechanically on a five or seven-day basis, and won't be affected at all.
Many of the schools, such as at St. Dominic Savio, have Macintoshes in their labs and are already Y2K-compliant, while the office runs with a Windows NT system. Hrynkiw said they've been told the software will work on Jan. 1, but they have a problem on Leap Year, or Feb. 29, 2000, for which a software patch will be supplied.
The separate board office has a stand-alone computer, and the lab at St. Michael's runs with Windows 95 and a Windows NT server, said Hrynkiw.
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