Security breach affecting Virginia Mason Franciscan Health staff, patients
Oct 5, 2022, 7:29 AM
Photo from KIRO 7
Virginia Mason Franciscan Health is dealing with a hacking incident that is impacting its workers and patients.
The health care provider is calling it an “IT security incident,” which is affecting its parent company, Common Spirit Health.
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Virginia Mason Franciscan sent out a statement saying as a precaution, it has taken certain IT systems offline, which may impact electronic health records and other systems.
Some patients say they haven’t been able to access their online charts and their appointments have been rescheduled. Doctors are also having difficulty accessing patients’ health records. For patients who were scheduled to have procedures soon, there is now a lot of uncertainty.
KIRO 7 spoke with a patient who was supposed to have an important medical examination later this week, but she’s now been told that the appointment may be in limbo.
“You have to be mentally prepared, and I do it and I want it over with. I just don’t want to keep bouncing the date down the calendar,” said patient Lorrie Scott.
The health care provider said in the statement that it is following protocols for system outages, adding, “We take our responsibility to ensure the privacy of our patients and IT security very seriously. As a result of this incident, we have rescheduled some patient appointments.”
It’s unclear what kind of patient information, if any, has been compromised, or how many hospitals have been affected.
CommonSpirit Health System operates 140 hospitals in 21 states, including 10 around western Washington.
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