WCHS Plans Temporary Phone and Internet Outage

January 3, 2024

Winnebago, NE – The Winnebago Comprehensive Healthcare System will be transitioning to an independent network from Friday, January 12th at 4:30 PM to Martin Luther King Jr Day or Monday, January 15th. During this time, all WCHS locations will be without consistent functioning phone and internet services as WCHS builds information technology infrastructure to support all their preventive, primary, and acute operations from scratch.

During this temporary disruption in regular services, WCHS anticipates that both internal and external communication channels, including phone and email, will be unavailable. The interruption is necessary to facilitate critical upgrades and infrastructure enhancements to ensure the continued reliability and security of WCHS's IT systems. The upgrade will allow the organization the self-determined, flexibility to maintain its systems for the long-term benefit of our patient community.

The disruption will occur over a holiday weekend so all non-emergent WCHS services will be closed. Chief Transformational Officer, Austin Schanzenbach explains “We have planned this upgrade over a holiday weekend to cause minimal disruption in our regular operations. Services will be operating as usual, except for using ‘downtime processes’ to account for the internet and phone outage. WCHS will utilize these downtime processes until internet and phone system upgrades have been completed. We ask that our customers please be prepared for minor delays during this time.”

The Winnebago Comprehensive Healthcare System appreciates the understanding and support of everyone affected by this temporary service disruption and reaffirms its unwavering commitment to delivering exceptional healthcare services to the community.