By Jeff Wardon, Jr., Assistant Editor

Kettering Health has confirmed a ransomware incident that occurred on May 20, WLWT reports. The breach was prompted an immediate shutdown of the organization’s IT infrastructure to contain the damage. Computer systems and many phone lines remain down, much to the dismay of patients and staff.  

It’s still unclear whether any patient or employee data was compromised, WLWT reports. A pop-up message appeared on thousands of computers, demanding Kettering respond and negotiate within 72 hours. Kettering officials said that no direct contact has been made with the attackers, and no ransom has been paid. Recovery is expected to take between 10 and 21 days. Despite the disruption, emergency departments, on-demand care and urgent care locations remain open. 

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Ransomware attacks can cause significant issues for healthcare organizations, including large amounts of downtime. In a study, Compartiech found that on average medical organizations lost nearly 14 days to downtime, with each year varying from 2.6 days in 2018 to 18.71 days in 2023. 

When systems go down, patient care and other critical services may not be able to be provided. Impacted healthcare facilities would then have to divert their patients to other sites, causing a delay in care. 

This can further snowball into eroding away at the trust the public has in healthcare organizations. Take Change Healthcare as an example, while not a care provider, their services for the healthcare industry were impacted due to a cyberattack. It ended up slowing down processes and delaying care for patients as a result.  

Jeff Wardon, Jr., is the assistant editor of the facilities market.