When a cyberattack knocked the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s digital systems offline, care teams at its Cancer Center and Research Institute turned a conference room into a command center, gathering around paper charts to coordinate treatment for cancer patients.
The health system fell victim to the hack Feb. 19. With computer screens dark across the infusion center, physicians, nurses and other staff reviewed handwritten documentation and discussed patient conditions in person as they worked to restart care without their usual technology.
The scene was one example of how clinicians across the Jackson-based academic medical center adapted during the nine-day cyberattack that disrupted systems and forced teams to temporarily revert to manual processes.
The medical center’s clinics resumed normal operations March 2 after the incident, which affected multiple mission areas but disproportionately disrupted patient care, according to a March 2 news release from UMMC.
At the Cancer Center and Research Institute, staff rapidly transitioned from digital systems to paper-based workflows to maintain treatments.
“Within hours, nursing, pharmacy, physicians, nurse practitioners, lab technicians, social workers, navigators and administrative leaders came together and built a war room, a true command center,” Devika Das, MD, director of UMMC’s division of hematology and oncology, said in the release.
Teams created an urgent infusion clinic that operated entirely offline and developed workarounds to securely access essential vendor information, Dr. Das said.
Chemotherapy treatments resumed Feb. 23, four days after clinics initially closed Feb. 19 when the cyberattack began.
Across the system, departments improvised new processes to maintain care while information systems teams worked to restore the network.
At Children’s of Mississippi, staff created a centralized document and supply hub to distribute paperwork and other materials needed for patient care while electronic systems were unavailable.
“The response from our Children’s teams has been remarkable,” Mary Taylor, MD, CEO of Children’s of Mississippi, said in the release. “Even under the stress of a cyberattack, our staff showed incredible collaboration and dedication, making sure every child and family received the care they needed without interruption.”
Nursing teams also returned to manual documentation practices that had largely disappeared with the widespread adoption of EHRs.
At Wiser Tower’s obstetrics and gynecology unit, nurses assembled binders for each patient and documented physician orders and medication administration by hand.
“It was a re-education, but our nurses know what they’re doing,” Jill Cutrer, RN, nurse manager, said in the release.
Kim Barrier, RN, director of nursing quality and patient safety for adult hospital nursing administration, said it had been nearly 15 years since staff relied on paper charting for an extended period.
Communication also became more difficult without access to typical digital platforms used to share documents and coordinate care, she said.
Despite the disruption, hospitals and emergency departments remained open throughout the outage, and staff contacted patients needing urgent care to schedule clinic visits.
Leaders said the experience underscored the importance of planning for extended system outages.
“I think this helps us realize how important it is to prepare for downtime and not take it lightly,” Ms. Barrier said in the release.
Dodie McElmurray, CEO of UMMC’s university and community hospitals, said staff worked together to maintain care throughout the disruption.
“Our teams have come together in an incredible way to keep the Medical Center running,” Ms. McElmurray said in the release. “They’ve worked very hard to ensure every patient continues to receive the same high-quality care they expect from us.”
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