For nearly a week, the halls of Lurie Children's Hospital have echoed with the unusual sound of silence from machines typically buzzing with digital activity. As reported by CBS Chicago, a crippling cyber security attack has brought down the hospital's entire network system, leaving doctors and patient families stranded in a pre-digital era of healthcare since last Wednesday.
The outage has ground numerous non-emergency medical functions to a halt. No patient has been able to attend their scheduled appointments, elective surgeries and procedures have been canceled, and communication has fallen to a standstill, with some even turning to social media to express their concerns, the CBS Chicago report details. Notably, Robin Berthier, co-founder of Network Perception, underscored the severity, stating, "This is different, the life of people is actually at play."
Lurie Children's Hospital has acknowledged the ordeal, emphasizing its commitment to addressing the cyber threat and the disruptions caused. As outlined in ABC7 Chicago, administrators are enlisting experts and law enforcement in their investigation and have proactively shut down network systems to contain the incident. A call center has been set up to field questions and manage patient needs during this network blackout.
Parents like Iriel Thomas, who has had a son hospitalized since last Saturday, have found themselves at the mercy of a prioritization protocol that seems like a throwback to less technologically dependent times. "It's just first come, first served on what is important right now," Thomas told ABC7 Chicago. Kelly Beeman, another parent caught off guard by the outage, described how medical staff adapted: "You can hear everybody talking about it, there are doctors huddled in the corner, this is what we are going to do, it seems like they are handling the situation."
As law enforcement advises against succumbing to any potential ransom demands, the hospital's primary aim is the restoration of critical systems. Meanwhile, neighboring healthcare provider Northwestern Medicine has responded to this wake-up call by ramping up its cyber security measures, seeking to thwart similar attacks before they strike, a CBS Chicago statement read. For updated information on Lurie Children's operational status, the hospital guides patients to visit their website.
