The impact of a cybersecurity incident at Nebraska Medicine stretches across the state as medical facilities that are part of Nebraska Medicine’s EPIC network experience issues. KETV Newswatch 7 has also confirmed at least one west Omaha Nebraska Medicine clinic is canceling all Wednesday appointments. Now, the patients caught in the middle wonder when things might return to normal. “When I’ve called, they’ve just said ‘You know, our systems are down, and they’re unable to get the results’ and things like that, so it’s just kind of a waiting game,” said one woman from Norfolk. The woman asked to remain anonymous. She said she’s waiting on results of a COVID-19 test through Faith Regional Health Services, which she expected to get back early this week.”We all have to quarantine in my household. There’s me, my husband and then we have a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old. So, my 7-year-old can’t go to school, my husband can’t go to work,” the woman said. Faith regional said in a statement: “Faith Regional is a member of the Nebraska Medicine Community Connect Epic network, which is currently experiencing a network interruption. Due to this, our electronic medical records and patient portal systems are presently offline. The service provider to these systems, Nebraska Medicine, is addressing a security incident and working diligently to restore the impacted systems and bring them back online. They have engaged leading independent forensic experts to support their efforts. Faith Regional is implementing workarounds to minimize any disruption to our patients, and we remain committed to providing exemplary medical services to our patients.” Faith Regional also posted on its Facebook Tuesday saying, “As part of the Nebraska Medicine Community Connect EPIC network, Faith Regional along with Great Plains Health in North Platte, Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings, and Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center in Beatrice who share the Epic system are all experiencing the outage.” Beatrice Community Hospital and Mary Lanning Healthcare did not respond to requests for comment. Megan McGown, Marketing Manager for Great Plains Health in North Platte, said she was not aware of any appointments or procedures canceled or rescheduled as a result of the network outage. “Teams are doing everything they can, but we ask for a little bit of patience and understanding, as we continue to work through the problems,” McGown said. Back in the metro, Darin Caster’s son has been at Nebraska Medicine since Labor Day. He has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and ended up in the hospital with septic shock. “The nurses come in, and just said ‘well, we just lost all our computers,'” Caster said. According to Caster, that happened on Saturday. Since then, he said he has seen staff revert to a paper system instead of using computers. He said his son’s care and medications have remained the same. Both families said staff are doing all they can to prioritize patients. “Yeah, the nurses up there, you know, despite dealing with COVID and what not, they’re doing great up there with the computers being down,” Caster said.
The impact of a cybersecurity incident at Nebraska Medicine stretches across the state as medical facilities that are part of Nebraska Medicine’s EPIC network experience issues.
KETV Newswatch 7 has also confirmed at least one west Omaha Nebraska Medicine clinic is canceling all Wednesday appointments.
Now, the patients caught in the middle wonder when things might return to normal.
“When I’ve called, they’ve just said ‘You know, our systems are down, and they’re unable to get the results’ and things like that, so it’s just kind of a waiting game,” said one woman from Norfolk.
The woman asked to remain anonymous. She said she’s waiting on results of a COVID-19 test through Faith Regional Health Services, which she expected to get back early this week.
“We all have to quarantine in my household. There’s me, my husband and then we have a 2-year-old and a 7-year-old. So, my 7-year-old can’t go to school, my husband can’t go to work,” the woman said.
Faith regional said in a statement:
“Faith Regional is a member of the Nebraska Medicine Community Connect Epic network, which is currently experiencing a network interruption. Due to this, our electronic medical records and patient portal systems are presently offline. The service provider to these systems, Nebraska Medicine, is addressing a security incident and working diligently to restore the impacted systems and bring them back online. They have engaged leading independent forensic experts to support their efforts. Faith Regional is implementing workarounds to minimize any disruption to our patients, and we remain committed to providing exemplary medical services to our patients.”
Faith Regional also posted on its Facebook Tuesday saying, “As part of the Nebraska Medicine Community Connect EPIC network, Faith Regional along with Great Plains Health in North Platte, Mary Lanning Healthcare in Hastings, and Beatrice Community Hospital and Health Center in Beatrice who share the Epic system are all experiencing the outage.”
Beatrice Community Hospital and Mary Lanning Healthcare did not respond to requests for comment.
Megan McGown, Marketing Manager for Great Plains Health in North Platte, said she was not aware of any appointments or procedures canceled or rescheduled as a result of the network outage.
“Teams are doing everything they can, but we ask for a little bit of patience and understanding, as we continue to work through the problems,” McGown said.
Back in the metro, Darin Caster’s son has been at Nebraska Medicine since Labor Day. He has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and ended up in the hospital with septic shock.
“The nurses come in, and just said ‘well, we just lost all our computers,'” Caster said.
According to Caster, that happened on Saturday. Since then, he said he has seen staff revert to a paper system instead of using computers. He said his son’s care and medications have remained the same.
Both families said staff are doing all they can to prioritize patients.
“Yeah, the nurses up there, you know, despite dealing with COVID and what not, they’re doing great up there with the computers being down,” Caster said.