PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Prevea Health and HSHS say they’re making progress, after suffering what they call a cybersecurity incident. That incident impacted computer systems and phone lines at all facilities. Some systems have been restored, but not everything is up and running fully — yet.
It’s been more than a week since a systemwide technical outage, first impacted Prevea Health and HSHS facilities. The outage impacted clinic and hospital operations, as well as most communication systems.
On Friday, leaders of the healthcare organizations released a joint video statement on YouTube outlining what had happened.
“Based on our findings we can confirm this was a result of a cybersecurity incident. Our ongoing investigation into the scope and impact of this incident will continue to happen,” said HSHS President and CEO Damond Boatwright.
While the leaders didn’t define the cybersecurity incident or give specifics, cybersecurity expert Curt Esser says whatever happened is still concerning.
In the online FAQ associated with the outage, the healthcare systems said they are still trying to determine if employee or patient personal information was compromised — and they’d notify anyone who may be affected.
Curt Esser said based on what he’s learned about the incident, everyone associated with Prevea Health and HSHS should take precautions.
According to Esser, “Whether it be past and present patients and past and current employees, freeze their credit with the three credit reporting agencies, very important. They should also consider looking into a credit monitoring service.”
The most recent update from the providers says hospitals and emergency rooms remain open, both elective and non-elective surgeries are being scheduled, and most phone lines are back up and running.
Dr. Ashok Rai, President and CEO of Prevea said, “Our commitment to care for our patients has not changed. We are trained to practice medicine and care for people.”
But for people like Aimee Stehsel and her husband Brian, who was supposed to have brain surgery last week only to learn it was postponed because of the outage, frustration is building.
Stehsel said, “We understand that they can’t just have a magical alright, let’s do it, but a little bit more communication would be nice. I’m sure we’re not the only family that is in this situation and was waiting and now it’s just at a standstill and that’s frustrating.”
Late Tuesday afternoon, nearly a week after he was supposed to have surgery, Brian Stehsel learned his procedure was tentatively rescheduled for Friday.
Prevea and HSHS say they are making progress on restoring their systems but don’t have a timetable for when everything will be fully up and running again.
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