‘Internal network issue’ forces 7 Ohio hospitals to divert emergency stroke care
Kettering Health in Ohio was forced to divert emergency stroke care services at seven of its hospitals on Tuesday due to an apparent IT outage. The downtime lasted well into the afternoon, with the health system confirming it began around 7:45 a.m. EDT.
When publicly announced a couple hours later, the nonprofit health system said it suspected an “internal IT issue” was to blame, hours later adding that it had confirmed it was not the victim of a cyberattack.
Notably, Kettering was hit with a ransomware attack in May that disrupted operations for weeks, and resulted in protected health data being posted for sale on the dark web. During that time, it was forced to divert emergency care to nearby facilities, with the outage impacting all nine of its hospitals.
The exact cause of this outage was not revealed, but the hospital confirmed Tuesday afternoon that it had identified the cause—an “internal network issue”—and was “working on a remedy.”
Around 3:00 p.m., Kettering reported in a LinkedIn post that its Internet had been restored, all systems were back up and running and it was no longer diverting emergency care to other facilities.
“All scheduled appointments and procedures will go forward as scheduled. Please call your doctor or practice if you have questions about your care,” it wrote.
During the downtime, Kettering said it was operating on backup procedures, as its MyChart patient portal was inoperative, as were other Internet-dependent systems. However, it did confirm that phone systems were unaffected by the outage.
Impacted facilities included the following:
- Kettering Health Greene Memorial
- Kettering Health Huber
- Kettering Health Middletown
- Kettering Health Preble
- Kettering Health Springfield
- Kettering Health Franklin
HealthExec reached out to the health system for more details on the cause. We’ll update this story with any statement we receive.
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.