Major Hospital Operator Ascension Reports Clinical Disruptions After Suspected Cyberattack – NBC Chicago

Major hospital operator Ascension said its clinical operations and systems were disrupted following a suspected “cybersecurity incident.”

The hospital system announced the outage Wednesday, saying it had “detected unusual activity on select technology systems.”

“We are currently continuing to investigate the situation,” the hospital operator’s statement read in part. “We responded immediately, beginning our investigation and activating our remedial measures.”

Ascension further stated that the company is recommending that its business partners temporarily suspend connections to its systems.

“A disruption to clinical operations has occurred and we continue to assess the impact and duration of the disruption,” the statement said. No further timeline was given.

Ascension is one of the largest hospital systems in Illinois with 150 care locations and 14 hospitals, including Ascension St. Francis in Evanston, Ascension Resurrection in Chicago, Ascension Saint Mary in Kankakee and Ascension Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village.

“Our care teams are trained to respond to these types of disruptions and have procedures in place to ensure patient care continues to be safe and minimized,” the statement continued.

Ascension is the latest major healthcare system to be affected by a disruptive cybersecurity event. Earlier this year, a “cybersecurity incident” at Lurie’s Children’s Hospital caused computer systems to be crippled for months. UnitedHealth Group also recently experienced a cyberattack that left many healthcare providers temporarily unable to dispense medications or receive reimbursement from insurers for months.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.