Five southwestern Ontario hospitals expect to have their network and computer services fully restored next month following a cyberattack that caused a system-wide outage.
In an update published on Wednesday, hospital leadership with the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA), Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, Windsor Regional Hospital, and Bluewater Health said it will still take some time before all affected critical systems are completely back online, but restoration will likely be completed by mid-December.
The five healthcare providers were the victims of a ransomware attack on October 23, which impacted the hospitals’ access to Wi-Fi, email, and patient information systems. The attack targeted TransForm Shared Service Organization, which runs technology systems at all five hospitals.
While some of those systems are currently functional, officials said they are currently slower than usual and require extra time. This affects access to labs and diagnostic imaging.
“We want to emphasize to our patients that our physicians and frontline staff are under greater than normal stress due to these unusual circumstances, and they are responding with incredible resolve,” hospital officials said in a statement. “We ask the public for their understanding during this time. ”
As of Wednesday, hospital officials said physicians may still not have access to past patient records or medical history, current medication lists for patients, reports filed by other clinicians, and pre-admission workups.
As a result, physicians may cancel procedures if they feel it is unsafe to proceed due to an absence of important information. If this occurs, the procedure will be rescheduled as quickly as possible.
Local municipal police departments, the Ontario Provincial Police, INTERPOL and the FBI continue to actively investigate the cyberattack, which has also resulted in the theft of patient and staff data.
An investigation to determine the specific individuals whose data may have been taken is also ongoing and is expected to take a number of months to complete.
Locally at CKHA, hospital officials said electronic patient health records were not affected by the data breach. However, an employee database report containing personal information about 1,446 current and former employees was stolen.