Walgreens Pharmacy Database Crashes Temporarily, Blocking Prescriptions

(Chicago Tribune/MCT) —

Walgreen Co.’s pharmacy database crashed and remained down for several hours on Friday morning, blocking customers from filling prescriptions.

The Deerfield, Ill.-based drugstore chain’s systems were restored at all of Walgreen’s 8,200 pharmacies by 1 p.m., said spokesman Jim Graham.

The outage, which affected all Walgreens pharmacies across the country, occurred during a routine database update that went awry, requiring the entire system to shut down, Graham said.

Walgreens worked throughout the morning and early afternoon to restore the database. The company filled more than 800 million prescriptions in its most-recent fiscal year.

Shares closed Friday down 2 cents at $61.05.

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