A recent IT hacking incident is affecting services at St. Anne Hospital in Burien, officials confirmed on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022.
St. Anne is part of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (VMFH), whose parent company, CommonSpirit Health, was hacked in a recent cyberattack.
The outage has been ongoing since at least Oct. 5, and is affecting all VMFH facilities.
We heard reports from concerned relatives of some patients, including one who said that even the elevators weren’t working, and that patient records and lab results were unavailable as well.
KIRO News reported that some patients say they haven’t been able to access their online charts, and that their appointments have been rescheduled. Doctors are also having difficulty accessing patients’ health records.
“For patients who were scheduled to have procedures soon, there is now a lot of uncertainty,” KIRO said.
“As a precautionary step, we have taken certain IT systems offline, which may include electronic health record (EHR) systems and other systems,” VMFH officials said in a statement. “Our facilities are following existing protocols for system outages and taking steps to minimize the disruption. We take our responsibility to ensure the privacy of our patients and IT security very seriously. As a result of this incident, we have rescheduled some patient appointments.”
The hospital remains open however.
“Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is committed to ensuring patient safety and continues to prioritize patients with the most urgent medical conditions,” VMFH added. “Our hospitals remain open and we encourage anyone experiencing an emergency to seek medical attention immediately. We recognize this is a frustrating time for our patients and staff and appreciate everyone’s patience as we work around the clock to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. We can’t thank our heroic staff enough for their hard work and dedication to continue caring for our patients during this difficult time.”
Arrived home from traveling this week to local unrest.. This unexpected cyber attack is crippling our local health system. Staff paychecks not getting processed etc.
As VMFH network outage hits Day 4, concerns of ransomware attack on health giant grow https://t.co/FUt18cC8Lz
— Serrah Linares (@SerrahL) October 9, 2022
This is why you need your own small personal health computer with plug ins from your care center on your personal health regimen
VMFH acknowledges ‘frustrating time’ as computer networks remain down for third day https://t.co/BKcfy6dMCG— Nerdonna (@kathycalm) October 6, 2022
CommonSpirit cyberattack spurs IT outages at CHI Memorial, hospitals across US including Chattanooga, Tennessee. Local media outlets report incident also caused disruptions at hospitals run by Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (VMFH) in Seattle. SC Media https://t.co/HIrQpJF3pX
— ReconSecureComputing (@SecRecon) October 5, 2022
Staff have been told nothing beyond that the shutdown is IT security incident with CommonSpirit Health. https://t.co/Xp2btWzSO7
— Tacoma News Tribune (@thenewstribune) October 8, 2022
St. Anne Hospital is located at 16251 Sylvester Road SW in Burien: