HOUSTON — St. Luke’s Health says it is restoring its systems after a more than week-long shutdown due to a ransomware attack.
The parent company for St. Luke's Health, CommonSpirit Health, announced on Oct. 12 that its systems were down after the company was hit by an “IT security incident.”
A nurse at St. Luke's, who asked to remain anonymous, said at the beginning of the attack that some facilities were fully paper charting, patients weren’t getting lab work, appointments were canceled and there were delays in care.
St. Luke’s released the following statement Wednesday about the attack:
“We are in the process of restoring those systems that were taken offline. St. Luke’s providers are now able to access their patients’ electronic health records and patients will be able to use the MyChart patient portal in the coming days. It will take some time before we can restore full functionality and we continue (to) work to bring our systems up as quickly and safely as we can.
“Throughout this process, we have taken steps to protect our systems and maintain continuity of care. We are only taking steps to restore systems when it is safe and secure to do so. We thank our patients, clinicians, team members and the community for their patience.”
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St. Luke's Health did not say how it resolved the attack or if it paid a ransom.
St. Luke’s is probably best known for St. Luke's Baylor in the Texas Medical Center, but that's just one of 16 hospitals in its Texas system which had about 1.8 million patient encounters last year.