MILWAUKEE — Patients and health care providers alike reported they are feeling worried after Ascension experienced a cyberattack. 

What You Need To Know

  • Patients and health care providers alike reported they are feeling worried after Ascension experienced a cyberattack

  • Ascension has not indicated when the problem will be fixed. Out of an abundance of caution, some non-emergency procedures have been postponed

  • Tara Anderson is a managing partner for a cyber security firm in Seattle. While workers and patients may feel alarmed and in the dark about the scope of this security breach, Anderson said by industry standards, Ascension has acted quickly to be transparent

  • She said not only is personal information jeopardized, so are lives

Connie Smith, president of the Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, works around the clock at Ascension St. Francis Hospital. 

She said the cybersecurity breach at Ascension is causing major challenges.

“Everything shut down,” said Smith. “We have no access to the electronic records at all, and so it’s really hard on all of us trying to make sure our patients are taken care of and reverting back to paper and not having any access to old medical records to make sure we can compare.”

Ascension has not indicated when the problem will be fixed. Out of an abundance of caution, some non-emergency procedures have been postponed. 

“People are exhausted,” said Smith. “They’re leaving the building exhausted, knowing they’ve done the best they could on a day-to-day basis, but it’s just like going home just feeling even more exhausted.”

Tara Anderson is a managing partner for a cyber security firm in Seattle. While workers and patients may feel alarmed and in the dark about the scope of this security breach, Anderson said by industry standards, Ascension has acted quickly to be transparent. 

“They’re notifying people in the media much quicker than typical, within 24 hours,” said Anderson. “I mean, normally it’s weeks for hospitals.”

Anderson said system hacks like this are becoming all too common in health care.

She said not only is personal information jeopardized, so are lives. 

“I mean these are human lives that are at risk with care being delayed, possible contradictions with medications and surgery and medical records are going to pen and paper like they did in the 80s and 90s, but the difference in the 80s and 90s is that way their system of truth and they understood that system. We’re reliant on digital medical records,” she said.

Smith said she works extra hard to make sure patient care remains the priority. 

“We can’t wait for the record to come back up because that’s the only way we can make sure our patients get what they need,” said Smith. 

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