O'FALLON, Ill. — Weeks after a cyberattack caused mass outages at Hospital Sisters Health System, the health system is another step closer to having all systems restored.
Hospital and clinic websites, phone systems, MyChart and guest Wi-Fi were all restored on Monday, according to an update from HSHS. The hospital system also said it was continuing to work on restoring the rest of its systems. In the meantime, patients may experience delays.
To read the full update from HSHS along with answers to frequently asked questions, visit hshsupdates.org.
The HSHS outage began on Aug. 27 following a cybersecurity incident. Doctors and nurses were forced to provide care for over a week without internet or phones.
Four St. Louis-area hospitals were affected: HSHS St. Elizabeth's Hospital, HSHS St. Joseph's Breese, HSHS St. Joseph's Highland and HSHS Holy Family Hospital.
Phone lines were restored on Sept. 4. The health system's electronic health records platform went back online on Sept. 12, allowing patients to once again schedule appointments online and send messages to their healthcare providers.
Convenient Care, located in O'Fallon, Illinois, was forced to close on Sept. 2 due to the system outage. It reopened Friday morning under normal operating hours, according to a post on St. Elizabeth Hospital's Facebook page. The facility provides walk-in care for patients with minor illnesses, sprains, strains and other issues that require immediate assistance but aren't serious enough to go to the emergency room.
St. John's Community Pharmacy, located in Springfield, Illinois, reopened Thursday, according to an update from the hospital system. It closed during the HSHS outage due to the inability to process or fill digital prescription orders. During the closure, some hospitals were providing patients with written prescriptions to bring to alternative pharmacies to be filled.
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