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A number of Ascension hospitals are diverting ambulances for emergency providers, and the nonprofit well being system is pausing some elective care within the wake of a cybersecurity incident Wednesday that shut down vital methods.
The nonprofit’s digital well being data, MyChart affected person portal and a few cellphone methods are unavailable, in accordance with a Thursday replace from Ascension, a big Catholic supplier that operates 140 hospitals throughout 19 states and Washington, D.C.
Varied methods that the well being system makes use of to order sure exams, procedures and drugs are additionally down.
“It’s anticipated that we’ll be using downtime procedures for a while,” an Ascension spokesperson stated in a press release. “Sufferers ought to deliver to their appointment notes on their signs and an inventory of present drugs and prescription numbers or the prescription bottles so their care staff can name in medicine must pharmacies.”
Ascension detected “uncommon exercise” on some know-how community methods Wednesday. The well being system launched remediation efforts, together with working with Mandiant, a Google subsidiary and cybersecurity firm, to help with an investigation and decide if information was breached.
The incident comes after the healthcare sector has confronted rising cyber threats. The sector continues to be recovering from the main ransomware assault towards UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare earlier this 12 months, which can have uncovered an enormous variety of Individuals’ information and shut down key supplier operations like claims processing.
Cyberattacks can result in worse affected person care and heightened mortality charges, as hospitals lose entry to vital methods and delay providers.
Earlier this 12 months, Chicago-based Lurie Youngsters’s Hospital was hit by a cyberattack that took its cellphone, e mail and EHR methods offline for weeks.
Ardent Well being Companies needed to divert emergency care at services in a number of states after an assault on Thanksgiving day. Nonemergent surgical procedures that had been placed on maintain resumed a number of weeks later.
