Hospital system in Michigan hit by cyberattack for second time in a year
A 13-hospital health system in Michigan confirmed Wednesday it was hit by a cyberattack that caused it to cancel some non-emergency care services “out of an abundance of caution.”
In a notice, McLaren Health Care said emergency care services and most surgeries will continue as normal. However, the cyberattack disrupted IT and phone systems, leading to its discovery.
McLaren also operates ambulatory care centers, imaging facilities and physician clinics—and it provides health plan coverage to patients in Michigan and Indiana. All patients seeking services at McLaren are asked to bring any medical records they have with them to appointments, including prescription data and lab tests, in case electronic patient care operations are disrupted.
“Several information technology systems continue to operate in downtime procedures while we work to fully restore functionality to our system. We have policies and procedures in place and train for information technology disruptions. We are grateful for the response from our frontline caregivers and staff who have come together to provide care under these circumstances,” McLaren said in its statement.
The health system said it is working with a cybersecurity firm to analyze the extent of the attack. Currently, it does not know if any patient data was taken.
Less than a year ago, McLaren was hit by a ransomware attack, which led to patient records being posted for sale on the dark web.
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