While the IT infrastructure at MedStar Health in the Washington-Baltimore area remains crippled by a possible ransomware attack Monday, patient records were not compromised, according to the health system’s lead IT vendor. Meawhile, MedStar has slowly begun recovering from the incident.
Cerner, which provides electronic health records across MedStar’s 10 hospitals and more than 250 outpatient facilities, said that its technology came through unscathed.
“While all systems were taken offline as a precaution, Cerner solutions — including the MedConnect EHR system — were not penetrated,” a Cerner spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “The MedConnect system is now online at limited facilities, and we continue to work closely with our client as the broader IT framework is brought back online.”
For its part, other than a brief statement to local media Monday acknowledging a breach, MedStar has not said anything about the hack or the recovery. This is the health system’s most recent tweet:
Networks temporarily shut down to prevent virus spread. We have no evidence of compromised information. All facilities remain open.
— MedStar Health (@MedStarHealth) March 28, 2016
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
While facilities may remain open, they seem to be at limited capacity. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that some patients are being “turned away” or told not to come in for appointments.
