Ohio, West Virginia hospitals say patient information safe after attempted ransomware attack

Julie Spitzer -

Two hospitals owned by Ohio Valley Health Services & Education Corp. say patients records remained secure after an attempted ransomware attack Nov. 23, The Times Leader reports.

The ransomware attack affected the computer systems at East Ohio Regional Hospital in Wheeling, W.Va., and Ohio Valley Medical Center in Martins Ferry. Although the hospitals were on full ambulance diversion, patient walk-ins were still accepted.

A hospital spokesperson told The Times Leader the hospitals have "redundant security, so the attack was able to get through the first layer but not the second layer," meaning no patient information had been compromised. To protect patients' health information, the hospitals' IT team took multiple computer systems offline, and the hospitals reverted to paper charting.

The IT team expected to have the issue resolved by Nov. 25, but as of early morning Nov. 26, neither hospital had issued an update.

Daniel Dunmyer, CEO of OVMC, told The Times Leader, "The OVMC-EORH employees and medical staff have been very adaptive and supportive and we are able to continue with quality patient care."

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

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