World cyber-attack hits home: How we handled it

17 Sep 2017

By: Wayne McFarlin, SH Emergency Preparedness Administrator

 

On Tuesday, June 27, a worldwide cyber-attack starting in Europe resulted in the vendor for our physician dictation system suspending all use of their system in the US to limit the spread of the attack.  

Our IS staff mitigated the crisis for the roughly 150 physicians directly impacted by this disruption; some physician groups, such as Emergency Department physicians, weren’t impacted because of their use of scribes.  

This disruption continued until July 7.

Highlights of the post-incident review:  

• The incident command team was activated as needed through this incident.
• The emergency “Physician Leadership Notification” template quickly notified the 12 physician leaders programmed on the notification; however a greater number of options is needed to quickly notify physicians (i.e. by section, by who’s on-duty, etc.), including an all-physician notification capability.

For details read the after action report here.