Lexington hospital affected by ransomware attack, some surgeries postponed

CHI Saint Joseph Hospital in Lexington is having to alter its day-to-day operations after a cyberattack on the hospital’s technical provider.

The incident began last week and has affected multiple facilities, according to CommonSpirit Health, the parent organization of Saint Joseph Health. Hospitals affected by the attack have been following protocols for system outages, such as taking certain systems offline. This included online medical records, CommonSpirit Health said.

Mary Branham, a spokesperson for Saint Joseph Hospital, said last week that some elective surgeries were postponed. Branham didn’t say how many surgeries were postponed or whether or not surgeries were still being postponed.

“We are working to resolve the issues as soon as possible,” Branham said. “We are grateful to our staff and physicians, who are doing everything possible to minimize the impact to our patients.”

“Patients continue to receive the highest quality of care, and we are providing relevant updates on the ongoing situation to our patients, employees and caregivers,” CommonSpirit Health said in a statement. “Patient care remains our utmost priority and we apologize for any inconvenience this matter has created.”

SpiritHealth said law enforcement and leading cybersecurity specialists were contacted to conduct an investigation into the ransomware attack.

“We continue to conduct a thorough forensics investigation and review of our systems and will also seek to determine if there are any data impacts as part of that process,” CommonSpirit Health said in a statement Wednesday.