UPDATE:
On Friday, HSHS Medical Group announced it received reports that people are "receiving email, text and phone calls claiming to be HSHS representatives seeking payment for services."
"At this time, we are not collecting payments from any patients for outstanding bills. We will notify you when billing processes are back up and running. Please do not respond to these types of messages. We ask that you save them so that we can track and investigate the source. Forward the information to spam@hshs.org."
Background:
The Hospital Sisters Health System has provided an update on the outage that has affected computers and communications within its network.
HSHS has created a page that gives details, adding it became aware Sunday of a system outage "that has temporarily taken offline virtually all operating systems."
HSHS said it is following protocols for outages and nearly all hospital and clinic locations remain open.
It added an investigation into the incident is ongoing.
"We will provide updates on this webpage and at our hospitals and clinics as appropriate."
As for questions such as whether personal data has been compromised, HSHS offered little information.
"We are continuing to look into this issue and will provide updates as we are able. Our top priority is continuing to provide consistent, quality care to our patients and restoring our systems and applications for our colleagues as quickly as possible," it said.
HSHS said the IT team is working to restore systems, but gave no timetable for getting things back to normal.
"We recognize how challenging this situation has been for everyone and how hard our colleagues and providers are working to continue caring for our patients. We greatly appreciate your patience as we work to fully restore our systems as quickly as possible. Patient safety and quality remain our top priorities," according to a statement posted.
