Some of Annapolis, Md.-based Luminis Health’s patients are being rerouted to other facilities and its physicians are reverting to paper charts as a cybersecurity incident continues to disrupt electronic systems.
Luminis Health first disclosed the incident Sept. 1, though community members told the Capital Gazette that systems were already down the day before. The Maryland Department of Health confirmed in a statement to WBAL-TV that Luminis Health alerted the state Aug. 31 that technology issues were causing a reroute, and that state agencies have met with the health system’s leadership to assess needs.
Capt. Jennifer Macallair, a spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, told the Gazette that emergency crews have coordinated with hospital providers on where to take patients given the facility’s limited availability. “It has had little impact on response times,” she said in the Sept. 3 story.
A Luminis Health spokesperson told WBAL-TV that the health system’s priority remains providing safe, high-quality care while it addresses the incident. “We take the security of our systems seriously,” the spokesperson said. A cancer patient told the news outlet her Aug. 31 radiation treatment was postponed because of the outage and has not been rescheduled.
Luminis Health said Sept. 1 its investigation into whether patient information was affected is ongoing and it will notify individuals if required under applicable law. The organization has not said which systems remain offline or when full restoration will occur.
Luminis Health operates three hospitals, including Anne Arundel Medical Center, and about 100 ambulatory care sites across the Annapolis region.
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