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‘IT security incident’ disrupts patients at St. Anthony

An “IT security incident” disrupted operations at St. Anthony Hospital and other Virginia Mason Franciscan facilities on Tuesday, Oct. 4, according to a statement from the hospital chain.

“As a precautionary step, we have taken certain IT systems offline, which may include electronic health record (EHR) systems and other systems,” according to the statement.

Patients reported being unable to access the hospital system’s MyChart patient portal. Other patients experienced delays, postponements or treatments that took longer than typical.

Patients reported medical staff resorting to using pen and paper to keep and update medical records, a function typically done electronically.

There’s huge outage affecting hospital records across the U.S.
within Common Spirit Health, including St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale.

One patient told me providers are back to all pen-and-paper records, and they’re piling up inside clinics.https://t.co/pSpNEjR1Xw

— joshfarley (@joshfarley) October 4, 2022

The statement from the PR firm said Virginia Mason Franciscan’s parent company, CommonSpirit Health, is “managing” the incident.

The VMFH statement did not address a question about whether any patient information was compromised in the incident.

“We take our responsibility to ensure the privacy of our patients and IT security very seriously,” the statement said. “As a result of this incident, we have rescheduled some patient appointments.”

The incident also affected patients at St. Michael’s Hospital in Silverdale and other facilities across the nation.