Waikato DHB reported today that "significant" progress has been made toward restoring its technical systems which went down following a recent cyberattack.

"Our current plan would see our hospitals' digital capability improved by the end of next week. Although there will still be some way to go, this would be a big step on from the past weeks," Waikato DHB Chief Executive Dr Kevin Snee said in an update.

The hospital group's radiation therapy service, as well as its inpatient management system, will be up and running in the said timeframe. Radiology and laboratory diagnostic services are also expected to go online by next week's end.

Waikato DHB said it has been able to restore over half of its servers in the past four days. According to Dr Snee, the group has worked closely with international specialist services "to systematically test and secure" all items before they are reinstated.

Monitoring systems were implemented at workstations providing heightened security. About 20% of its workstation network operations were restored.

Moreover, Waikato DHB hospitals are able to perform acute surgeries. Most of its outpatient clinics, child health clinics, and telehealth services are operational.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

Waikato DHB's information service system experienced a full outage on 18 May after it got hit by a cyberattack that may have been trigged via an email attachment. Since then, it has enforced full manual processes across its network.

Last week, several media outlets received patient information allegedly released by Waikato DHB's hackers. New Zealand's Privacy Commission told the hospital group to "notify and offer support to the individuals" identified in the information and to actively monitor for potential host sites of the sensitive data.

ON THE RECORD

"Work to restore affected systems will continue over coming weeks, which will allow us to progressively stand our services back up," Dr Snee said.

"While services here will start moving closer to [the] usual standard, it will be some time before we are fully functioning again so we do appreciate the public understanding," he added.