Instead of studying a medical history, doctors can now draw on paper while seeing patients.
Damond Boatwright , head and Chief Executive of the Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS), confirmed that the shutdown of internal communication systems was the result of a cyber incident.
Boatwright said that on the morning of Sunday, August 27, technical failures began to occur in the systems of HSHS hospitals and clinics. According to the director, doctors have implemented system downtime procedures, which are designed for such cases. One of the procedures is the introduction of accounting and document management on paper, as well as communication of doctors using a walkie-talkie, etc. Therefore, hospitals were able to continue working and provide assistance to clients.
Due to the outage, many patients are unable to contact local hospitals, clinics, and other HSHS medical facilities. Some patients were forced to reschedule their treatment. HSHS has 15 interconnected hospitals and various clinics in Illinois and Wisconsin.
"We receive assistance from experts from third-party organizations, as well as work with law enforcement agencies. We have implemented additional security measures to protect our systems, and we have not detected any further unauthorized access to our IT environment," Boatwright said.
Although no details were provided about the theft of any personal data, HSHS warned customers that some patients were being asked to pay their debts to the company. HSHS recommended not responding to such notifications and sending them to the company for further investigation.
At the moment, many mission-critical systems are operational, and internal communication (email and messaging) is still being restored. The investigation into the scale and consequences of the incident continues.
Damond Boatwright , head and Chief Executive of the Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS), confirmed that the shutdown of internal communication systems was the result of a cyber incident.
Boatwright said that on the morning of Sunday, August 27, technical failures began to occur in the systems of HSHS hospitals and clinics. According to the director, doctors have implemented system downtime procedures, which are designed for such cases. One of the procedures is the introduction of accounting and document management on paper, as well as communication of doctors using a walkie-talkie, etc. Therefore, hospitals were able to continue working and provide assistance to clients.
Due to the outage, many patients are unable to contact local hospitals, clinics, and other HSHS medical facilities. Some patients were forced to reschedule their treatment. HSHS has 15 interconnected hospitals and various clinics in Illinois and Wisconsin.
"We receive assistance from experts from third-party organizations, as well as work with law enforcement agencies. We have implemented additional security measures to protect our systems, and we have not detected any further unauthorized access to our IT environment," Boatwright said.
Although no details were provided about the theft of any personal data, HSHS warned customers that some patients were being asked to pay their debts to the company. HSHS recommended not responding to such notifications and sending them to the company for further investigation.
At the moment, many mission-critical systems are operational, and internal communication (email and messaging) is still being restored. The investigation into the scale and consequences of the incident continues.
