While Chatham-Kent’s hospital has rebuilt most of its critical systems following a cyberattack in the fall, it will still take months before the organization fully recovers.
Lori Marshall, the president and CEO of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, said the hospital passed a pivotal point on December 12 when a “Code Grey” was called off at both sites of CKHA.
A Code Grey is initiated following the loss of a critical system at the hospital.
A cyberattack on October 23, 2023, 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 ransomware attack also crippled the hospitals’ computer and reporting systems.
As of mid-December, CKHA has completed the recovery of its information systems and major electronic health records.
“This was our Phase 1 and very much focused on our primary clinical platforms that have the most significant impact on our patients and our service delivery,” said Marshall.
Other areas of the hospital that have completed the recovery phase included the finance department and the payroll system.
CKHA is now in the second phase of its recovery process, which will focus on clinical systems, support systems, and back-office systems.
“Everything that’s in our homes is so linked to information technology, I think you can imagine for a hospital system, it is going to take us a number of months to restore back to the way we were before the cyberattack,” said Marshall.
Marshall added that CKHA continues to have daily conversations with the other hospitals impacted by the cyberattack regarding the recovery process and restoring services to appropriate levels.