Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Vermont Medical Center, Burlington, VT, USA.
University of Vermont Medical Center Jeffords Institute for Quality, Burlington, VT, USA.
Am J Clin Pathol. 2022 Apr 1;157(4):510-517. doi: 10.1093/ajcp/aqab145.
Our institution was affected by a multi-institution, systemwide cyberattack that led to a complete shutdown of major patient care, operational, and communication systems. The attack affected our electronic health record (EHR) system, including all department-specific modules, the laboratory information system (LIS), pharmacy, scheduling, billing and coding, imaging software, internet access, and payroll. Downtime for the EHR lasted 25 days, while other systems were nonfunctional for more than 40 days, causing disruptions to patient care and significantly affecting our laboratories. As more institutions transition to network EHR systems, laboratories are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack. This article focuses on the approaches we developed in the anatomic pathology (AP) laboratory to continue operations, consequences of the prolonged downtime, and strategies for the future.
Our AP laboratory developed manual processes for surgical and cytopathology processing, redeployed staff, and used resources within the department and of nearby facilities to regain and maintain operations.
During the downtime, our AP laboratory processed 1,362 surgical pathology and consult cases as well as 299 cytology specimens and outsourced 1,308 surgical pathology and 1,250 cytology cases.
Our laboratory successfully transitioned to downtime processes during a 25-day complete network outage. The crisis allowed for innovative approaches in managing resources.
我们所在的医疗机构受到了一次多机构、全系统的网络攻击，导致主要的患者护理、运营和通信系统完全瘫痪。此次攻击影响了我们的电子健康记录 (EHR) 系统，包括所有特定于部门的模块、实验室信息系统 (LIS)、药房、排班、计费和编码、成像软件、互联网接入和工资单。EHR 停机时间持续了 25 天，而其他系统则有超过 40 天无法正常运行，这导致了患者护理的中断，并对我们的实验室产生了重大影响。随着越来越多的医疗机构转向网络 EHR 系统，实验室越来越容易受到网络攻击的影响。本文重点介绍了我们在解剖病理学 (AP) 实验室中开发的继续运营的方法、长时间停机的后果以及未来的策略。
我们的 AP 实验室为手术和细胞学处理开发了手动流程，重新部署了员工，并利用部门内部和附近设施的资源来恢复和维持运营。
在停机期间，我们的 AP 实验室处理了 1362 例外科病理学和会诊病例，以及 299 例细胞学标本，并外包了 1308 例外科病理学和 1250 例细胞学病例。
我们的实验室在 25 天的完全网络中断期间成功过渡到停机流程。这场危机为管理资源提供了创新方法。
