Idaho hospital diverting ambulances after cyberattack

A hospital serving a large community in Idaho is diverting ambulances to other clinics after a cyberattack damaged its computer systems.

Idaho Falls Community Hospital did not respond to requests for comment about how long they expect to reroute emergency cases but in a Facebook post on Tuesday said it has been struggling with the cyberattack since Monday morning.

The hospital said some clinics connected to it will be closed “until we feel confident the virus has been fully removed.” Administrators did not confirm if the attack was ransomware-related.

“Fortunately, our IT team identified the attack quickly and took immediate action to limit the impacts and keep all patient information safe and secure,” Idaho Falls Community Hospital’s parent facility, Mountain View Hospital, said in a statement.

“Idaho Falls Community Hospital will divert ambulances to nearby hospitals and normal workflows may look a little different. Patients will be contacted by their provider if their appointments are impacted.”

They noted that they are still caring for patients and surgeries are continuing as usual. Their emergency department is still open and most clinics are still seeing patients.

With 67,000 residents, Idaho Falls is one of the biggest towns in the eastern part of the state and is the state’s largest outside of the Boise metropolitan area. It is also the commercial, cultural, and healthcare hub for parts of western Wyoming and southern Montana.

Cyberattacks continue to cause real-world damage to healthcare facilities globally. In March, a Tallahassee, Florida hospital was forced to divert patients to other facilities and cancel all non-emergency surgical procedures due to a ransomware attack, while the biggest children’s hospital in Canada was crippled by a Christmas ransomware incident.

A wide-ranging ransomware attack on the city of Dallas left hospitals scrambling for more than a week to find alternative ways to organize their ambulance system after the downed digital system had ambulances sent to the wrong locations.

Ransomware has become so prevalent that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published reports on ransomware groups, including Royal, Cuba, Venus, Lorenz and Hive.

But it's not just the U.S. being affected. Hospitals in Brussels and Barcelona have dealt with similar situations in the last six months.