In an announcement on the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital website, inbound and outbound email to and from external addresses have been restored, as well as most of the phone lines after the hospital, part of Northwestern University, took down its communications systems following a cybersecurity matter.

WHY IT MATTERS

Lurie Children's, which said it was a victim of a "known criminal threat actor," took its MyChart patient portal and other communications and IT systems down on January 31, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

"We did this in an effort to protect the information of our patients, workforce and organization at large,” Dr. Marcelo Malakooti, the chief medical officer, said at a hospital news conference, according to the story. 

Patients awaiting procedures and appointments at all Lurie Children’s locations are still scheduled and are being seen, unless their care provider contacts them directly to reschedule, the hospital said in a new statement posted to its website Thursday afternoon. 

The children's hospital also noted that downtime procedures are being used.

"As MyChart remains offline for the time being, the call center continues to be the best way for patient families to reach providers and service lines."

Despite continued operations, the Sun-Times reported Monday that the outage is being felt beyond the hospital. 

Some pediatricians are sending urgent patients elsewhere due to the communications outage, while some practices are taking to social media that they cannot access billing tied to the hospital.

"Due to high volumes, if you receive a busy signal, please try calling us back," Lurie Children's said. 

THE LARGER TREND

Growing ransomware attacks result in shutdowns of hospital computer networks and deny clinicians access to patient information that can go on for three to four weeks.

"We have learned some hard lessons," said John Riggi, the American Hospital Association's cyber risk advisor at the HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum in September.

The loss of diagnostic data, PACS systems and other IT infrastructure ultimately affects the delivery of patient care – and hospitals need to be ready, he said.

"Business continuity is not the same as clinical continuity, and we need to be prepared to carry on operations for up to four weeks," Riggi said. 

ON THE RECORD

"As an academic medical center, our systems are highly complex, and these incidents can take time to resolve," Lurie Children's noted in its latest statement. "Our network systems’ restoration is ongoing and progressing. We are thankful to our workforce for their continued efforts as we bring our systems back online and for the support and patience from our patient families, community providers and community at large."

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.