The fallout continues following last year’s ransomware attack that resulted in a massive data breach at five southwestern Ontario hospitals.
The Tilbury District Family Health Team (TDFHT) has confirmed that its patient health information was impacted by the cyberattack on October 23, 2023, which also resulted in varying amounts of patient and staff data being stolen from Bluewater Health, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA), Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, and Windsor Regional Hospital.
The attack targeted TransForm Shared Service Organization, which runs technology systems at all five hospitals and TDFHT.
In a letter to affected patients/clients, TDFHT said it determined that its electronic medical record was not compromised during the data breach. However, the health team said data that was stored on a shared drive was stolen.
The stolen data may have also included patient names, birth dates, addresses, and health card numbers. As well, the stolen data also contained patient reports pertaining to medical status or chronic disease programming, patient medication summaries, and immunization status summaries.
Social insurance numbers, banking details and financial information were not accessed by the hackers, TDFHT said.
While data stolen from the five regional hospitals has since been published online by the cyber criminals responsible, it is unknown if any data TDFHT has been posted.
The Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner has been notified of the data breach at TDFHT. As well, municipal police departments, the Ontario Provincial Police, INTERPOL and the FBI are all actively investigating the cyberattack.
Aside from CKHA and TDFHT, TransForm said no other organizations utilize its services in Chatham-Kent.