Just days after SickKids said it was back up and running following the LockBit ransomware attack, the University of Toronto Health Network announced an IT outage affecting multiple digital systems across their network. .
WHY IT IMPORTANT
UHN, one of the largest health systems in Canada with three acute care hospitals and other facilities, warned patients at the onset of a power outage that they might not be able to reach some departments and would be hospitalized. significant delays in getting to appointments.
The next day, the hospital announced that there had been no patient data breach and said the outage was due to an issue with the hospital’s network.
“We believe this was not a cyber attack and work throughout the night restored virtually all systems and ensured that they were stable,” UHN said in a statement posted on its website. me.
“There is no patient data breach as the problems with the system are purely internal.”
For SickKids, it took weeks to recover from a ransomware attack that was not without hiccups.
TREND TO BIGGER
Disruption of any kind can affect patient safety and electronic health record outages and other system problems can occur when the infrastructure overloaded.
In 2014 – when hacker attacks accounted for only 1% of unintended EHR disruptions – hardware malfunctions, internet connection problems, power outages and natural disasters caused disruptions. care for patients at nearly 60 percent of hospitals, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said.
At that time, 15% of hospitals had EHR dysfunction affecting patient care; 9% of patients required referrals due to interruptions and 20% of outages lasted more than 8 hours.
By comparison, 66% of healthcare organizations were hit by ransomware in 2021, often leaving neighboring hospitals with challenges during a pandemic with patients being transferred. line.
Ransomware attacks also lead to record-high costs and nearly half disrupt healthcare delivery – for weeks or months.
While there is no sign of the end of ransomware attacks, last July, LockBit announced that it now prefers data filtering and offers a $1 million payout for personally identifiable information. famous individuals. As reported by Axios, they are not the only ransomware group that is currently dropping encryption.
ON PROFILE
“We thank everyone who worked through the night to make sure we were fully operational at the end of the day,” UHN said.
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS.
