Abbou Benyamine, Kessel Boris, Ben Natan Merav, Gabbay-Benziv Rinat, Dahan Shriki Dikla, Ophir Anna, Goldschmid Nimrod, Klein Adi, Roguin Ariel, Dudkiewicz Mickey
Hospital Administration, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, Hadera, Israel.
Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
Front Digit Health. 2024 Feb 16;6:1321485. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2024.1321485. eCollection 2024.
Healthcare organizations operate in a data-rich environment and depend on digital computerized systems; thus, they may be exposed to cyber threats. Indeed, one of the most vulnerable sectors to hacks and malware is healthcare. However, the impact of cyberattacks on healthcare organizations remains under-investigated.
This study aims to describe a major attack on an entire medical center that resulted in a complete shutdown of all computer systems and to identify the critical actions required to resume regular operations.
This study was conducted on a public, general, and acute care referral university teaching hospital.
We report the different recovery measures on various hospital clinical activities and their impact on clinical work.
The system malfunction of hospital computers did not reduce the number of heart catheterizations, births, or outpatient clinic visits. However, a sharp drop in surgical activities, emergency room visits, and total hospital occupancy was observed immediately and during the first postattack week. A gradual increase in all clinical activities was detected starting in the second week after the attack, with a significant increase of 30% associated with the restoration of the electronic medical records (EMR) and laboratory module and a 50% increase associated with the return of the imaging module archiving. One limitation of the present study is that, due to its retrospective design, there were no data regarding the number of elective internal care hospitalizations that were considered crucial.
The risk of ransomware cyberattacks is growing. Healthcare systems at all levels of the hospital should be aware of this threat and implement protocols should this catastrophic event occur. Careful evaluation of steady computer system recovery weekly enables vital hospital function, even under a major cyberattack. The restoration of EMR, laboratory systems, and imaging archiving modules was found to be the most significant factor that allowed the return to normal clinical hospital work.
医疗保健机构在数据丰富的环境中运作，并依赖数字计算机系统；因此，它们可能面临网络威胁。事实上，医疗保健行业是最容易受到黑客攻击和恶意软件侵害的行业之一。然而，网络攻击对医疗保健机构的影响仍未得到充分研究。
本研究旨在描述一次对整个医疗中心的重大攻击，该攻击导致所有计算机系统完全关闭，并确定恢复正常运营所需的关键行动。
本研究是在一家公立、综合、急症护理转诊大学教学医院进行的。
我们报告了针对医院各种临床活动采取的不同恢复措施及其对临床工作的影响。
医院计算机系统故障并未减少心脏导管插入术、分娩或门诊就诊的数量。然而，在攻击发生后立即以及攻击后的第一周，观察到手术活动、急诊室就诊和医院总住院人数急剧下降。在攻击发生后的第二周开始，所有临床活动逐渐增加，电子病历（EMR）和实验室模块的恢复使临床活动显著增加了30%，成像模块存档的恢复使临床活动增加了50%。本研究的一个局限性是，由于其回顾性设计，没有关于被认为至关重要的选择性内科住院人数的数据。
勒索软件网络攻击的风险正在增加。医院各级的医疗系统都应意识到这一威胁，并在这种灾难性事件发生时实施相关协议。每周对计算机系统的稳定恢复进行仔细评估，即使在重大网络攻击下也能确保医院的重要功能。发现恢复EMR、实验室系统和成像存档模块是使医院临床工作恢复正常的最重要因素。
