CommonSpirit Health system experiences IT security incident
By Ken Showers, Managing Editor
Updated 5:06 PM CDT, Wed October 5, 2022
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – CommonSpirit Health, the largest Catholic health system in the United States and second largest nonprofit hospital chain, was the victim of a disruptive cyberattack on Oct. 3, 2022.
Following reports of service issues and procedure rescheduling across multiple hospitals in the network CommonSpirit Health issued the following statement:
“CommonSpirit Health is managing an IT security issue that is impacting some of our facilities. As a precautionary step, we have taken certain IT systems offline, which may include electronic health record (EHR) and other systems. Our facilities are following existing protocols for system outages and taking steps to minimize the disruption. We take our responsibility to ensure the security of our IT systems very seriously. As a result of this issue, we have rescheduled some patient appointments. Patients will be contacted directly by their provider and/or care facility if their appointment is impacted.”
While it is not immediately clear how many affiliated facilities were affected by the incident the results of the attack were made immediately clear as local news organizations reported disruptions that saw ambulances diverted to other hospitals in some cases according to the Des Moines Register. Hospitals have resorted to using paper charts in lieu of access to electronic health record systems.
There is no word yet on when the issue will be resolved, in 2019 CommonSpirit Health operated a total of 700 care sites and 142 hospitals.
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