William Simpson
CHICAGO (CBS) — Healthcare network Ascension announced Wednesday that its clinical operations were disrupted by a cyberattack.
In a press release, Ascension said it responded immediatelyand access to some systems has been disrupted with remediation efforts underway.
“Our care teams are trained for this type of disruption and have initiated procedures to ensure the delivery of patient care continues safely and with as little impact as possible,” Ascension said in a press release. “There has been a disruption to clinical operations and we continue to evaluate the impact and duration of the disruption.”
Ascension said it brought in cybersecurity firm Mandiant Solutions to help with the investigation and notified authorities.
“Together, we are working to fully investigate what information, if any, may have been affected by the situation,” Ascension said. “If we determine that any sensitive information has been affected, we will notify and support those individuals in accordance with all relevant regulatory and legal guidelines.”
Ascension has advised business partners to temporarily suspend their connection to the Ascension system.
Ascension is one of the nation’s leading Catholic, nonprofit health systems.
This follows a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare — a subsidiary of healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group — that compromised sensitive patient data and created billing headaches at pharmacies, hospitals and practices across the country, threatening to put some healthcare providers out of business.
Healthcare providers in the US have has experienced an increase in ransomware attacks in recent years.
Last month, HHS Secretary Becerra told CBS News that the consolidation of health networks across the country risks “compromising capacity.”[ing] at the expense of real competition”, adding: “Consolidation occurs to the point that there are only a few players and when one or two of these big players fall, so does the industry. We can’t afford to have that.”
Ascension Illinois currently operates 14 hospitals in the Chicago area – including Ascension Holy Family in Des Plaines, Ascension Alexian Brothers Medical Center and Behavioral Health Hospital in Elk Grove Village, Ascension St. West Town, Ascension St. Joseph in East Lakeview, Ascension St. .Francis in Evanston and Ascension Resurrection in Norwood Park. The disturbance was also affecting hospitals in Michigan.
These hospitals were part of the AMITA partnership between Ascension and AdventHealth before the partnership split two years ago.
In January, Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago was also hit by a high-profile case. cyber attack. The hospital had to as a result, take your phone, email and other systems offline – and weeks of interruptions to regular operations followed.
