McLaren updates communities on criminal cyberattack

McLaren posted an update on its website today with the latest on a cyberattack that took all systems and operations off line on Monday morning. Here is the hospital’s statement in its entirety:

McLaren Health Care can now confirm the disruption to our information technology and phone systems that was reported (Monday)  was the result of a criminal cyber attack. Our information technology team continues to work with external cyber security experts to analyze the nature of the attack and mitigate the impacts of the threat actors. At this time, we have not determined if any patient or employee data was compromised.

Impact on Operations

Immediately after becoming aware of the attack, our hospitals and outpatient clinics instituted downtime procedures to ensure care delivery within our facilities. Several information technology systems continue to operate in downtime procedures while we work to fully restore functionality to our system. We have policies and procedures in place and train for information technology disruptions. We are grateful for the response from our frontline caregivers and staff who have come together to provide care under these circumstances.

Currently, our facilities are largely operational and able to care for our communities and will continue to do so until operations are fully restored. Our emergency departments continue to be operational, most surgeries and procedures continue to be performed, and our physician offices continue to see as many patients as possible. During this time of limited access to our systems, and out of an abundance of caution, some non-emergent appointments, tests, and treatments are being rescheduled.

In addition, we are also actively working with our vendor partners and insurance providers to ensure our supply chain is not impacted and insurance authorizations are processed for care and treatments.

Guidance for Patients

Patients with scheduled appointments should plan to attend those appointments unless they are contacted by a member of our care team. Our team will work diligently with any patient who has an appointment rescheduled. During this disruption, we are requesting patients bring any of the following information they may have to their appointments:

1. A list of current medications or prescription bottles
2. Printed physician orders for imaging studies or treatments
3. Printed results of recent lab tests available in the patient portals
   • McLaren Health Care – patient portal
     • McLaren Caro Region – patient portal
     • McLaren Thumb Region – patient portal
   • Karmanos – patient portal
4. A list of allergies