Computer systems are down for the Eastern Connecticut Health Network and Waterbury HEALTH Thursday and ECHN said they believe there was a cyberattack.
ECHN is diverting patients from its hospital emergency rooms while Waterbury Hospital is using paper records during the outage.
A message on the ECHN website says all Prospect Medical Holdings facilities are experiencing IT complications, which are impacting some ECHN locations.
Prospect Medical Holdings is a Los Angeles company that owns and operate 16 hospitals and a network of more than 165 outpatient facilities and clinics in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Southern California.
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ECHN and Waterbury HEALTH are both affiliated.
The FBI said it is investigating cyber ransomware investigation of some local medical facilities.
“The New Haven Field Office of the FBI is involved in an ongoing cyber ransomware investigation of some local medical facilities. We are working closely with law enforcement partners and the victim entities to address the issues. At this time there is no further information we can share as this is an ongoing investigation. If and when information can be shared we will do so,” Special Agent In Charge Robert Fuller said in a statement.
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Waterbury Health impact
Waterbury Hospital posted on Facebook that the outage is affecting all Waterbury HEALTH inpatient and outpatient operations and they might reschedule some appointments.
Waterbury Hospital is following “downtime procedures,” and that includes using paper records until the issue is resolved. They said patient visitation is not affected.
Eastern Connecticut Health Network impact
ECHN’s ERs are on a two-hour diversion.
The issue was affecting the ERs at both Manchester Memorial Hospital and Rockville General Hospital.
As of 5:30 p.m., ECHN said the ERs at both hospitals were open and accepting patients, but ambulance and EMS companies were still diverting patients to other facilities.
ECHN interim chief operating officer and vice president of diagnostic services Jillian Menzel said that there is no timeline for restoring IT access.
Patients with appointments are being contacted individually.
“Our staff is fully focused on patient care and the continuation of patient care," Menzel said. "We are reaching out to patients whose care will be impacted for outpatient procedures.”
The ECHN staff has also moved to a downtime process, according to Menzel.
Menzel thanked the community for their patience as the company works to resolve the issue. She said that leadership is meeting every two hours to evaluate the situation and discuss if they need to continue diverting patients from ERs.
These ECHN facilities are closed
The following ECHN facilities are closed until further notice because of the IT issues. They are:
- All ECHN Medical Group Primary Care locations
- All ECHN Medical Group Specialty locations
- Center for Wound Healing
- Elective surgeries
- Evergreen Imaging Center
- Gastroenterology appointments & procedures
- Outpatient Laboratories (ECHN Diagnostics)
- Podiatry Clinic
- Stroke Center
- Tolland Imaging Center
- Urgent Care Center
- Visiting Nurse & Health Services of CT
- Women's Center for Wellness
