Black Basta Ascension Attack Redux — can Patients Die of Ransomware?

16 days on, huge hospital system continues to be paralyzed by ransomware—and patient safety is at risk.

It’s been more than two weeks and Ascension Health is still suffering a crippling ransomware outage. It’s not getting any better and there’s no end in sight.

Meanwhile, patient outcomes are getting worse, say reports—thanks to paper-shuffling delays to care, dangerous errors and worrying omissions. An anonymous insider alleges an attack was bound to happen sooner or later, due to lack of investment.

Here we are again. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we ponder government intervention.

Your humble blog­watcher curated these bloggy bits for your enter­tain­ment. Not to mention: Wild knots (or not).

Inglorious Basta(rds)

What’s the craic? KUT’s Olivia Aldridge and Carmel Wroth report: How the Ascension cyberattack is disrupting care

“Lack of safety checks”
Hospital staff are forced to write notes by hand and deliver orders for tests and prescriptions in person in the ongoing fallout from a recent ransomware attack. … A lack of safety checks with these backup methods has introduced errors.
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Ascension is one of the largest health systems in the United States, with some 140 hospitals. … Ascension has not yet confirmed whether patient data was compromised.
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Some of Ascension’s electronic health records systems [are] affected, along with systems used to order … tests, procedures and medications. Some phone capabilities have also been offline, and patients have been unable to access portals used to view medical records and get in touch with their doctors. … Orders for medication, labs and imaging are being handwritten and then distributed by hand to various departments … and every task is taking longer to complete.

This does not sound good. The Gray Lady’s Reed Abelson adds: Cyberattack at Ascension Hospitals Persists

“Hospital mortality rises”
The dangers of missing pieces of a patient’s history are palpable. … Studies have shown that hospital mortality rises after [a] cyberattack.
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Many of the routine safeguards have not been available. Nurses … have grown far less certain that doctors have received important updates of a patient’s…