Ardent Well being Providers introduced that it suffered a ransomware assault on the morning of Nov. 23, 2023. Nashville-based Ardent stated it proactively took its community offline, suspending all person entry to its IT purposes, together with company servers, Epic software program, web and scientific applications.
By way of its subsidiaries, for-profit Ardent owns and operates 30 hospitals and greater than 200 websites of care with greater than 1,400 aligned suppliers in six states.
Ardent stated it has reported this occasion to legislation enforcement and retained third-party forensic and risk intelligence advisors. “Along with digital safety procedures already in place, Ardent has additionally carried out further info expertise safety protocols and is working with specialist cybersecurity companions to revive its info expertise operations and capabilities as shortly as attainable. Right now, we can’t verify the extent of any affected person well being or monetary information that has been compromised,” the corporate stated.
Whereas this incident has resulted in momentary disruption to sure facets of its scientific and monetary operations, Ardent stresses that affected person care continues to be delivered safely and successfully in its hospitals, emergency rooms, and clinics. “In an abundance of warning, our amenities are rescheduling some non-emergent, elective procedures and diverting some emergency room sufferers to different space hospitals till methods are again on-line.”
Ardent stated that MyChart and On-Demand Video Visits are quickly unavailable.
The investigation and restoration of entry to digital medical information and different scientific methods is ongoing. Ardent stated it’s nonetheless figuring out the complete impression of this occasion and it’s too quickly to understand how lengthy it will take or what information could also be concerned on this incident.
Among the many impacted well being amenities are Pascack Valley Medical Heart in Westwood, N.J., and Mountainside Medical Heart in Montclair, N.J., that are each a part of the Hackensack Meridian Well being system.
In keeping with HIPAA Journal, 10-hospital UT Well being East Texas and Portneuf Medical Heart in Pocatello, Idaho, had been hit by the assault that resulted in a community outage, which put emergency rooms on divert standing.
The College of Kansas Well being System St. Francis Campus additionally skilled a community outage because of the safety incident. “Our group is working to evaluate the impression of this outage and restore entry, and we are going to comply with established downtime protocols as wanted,” a press release from the well being system stated. “Affected person care has not been adversely impacted. As a precaution, our Emergency Room is at present on divert standing.”
Different Ardent subsidiaries reporting outages embrace BSA Well being System in Amarillo, Texas, and Lovelace Well being System in New Mexico.