CommonSpirit Health Suffers IT Outages, EHR Downtime at Multiple Hospitals

CommonSpirit Health confirmed that it has been suffering IT outages as a result of an unspecified IT security incident that began on October 3. The incident is impacting multiple facilities within the health system, forcing some hospitals to take their EHR systems offline. The incident impacted CommmonSpirit itself, not its EHR vendor. 

CommonSpirit Health is one of the largest nonprofit healthcare systems in the US, with more than 1,000 care sites and 140 hospitals in 21 states.

“Our facilities are following existing protocols for system outages and taking steps to minimize the disruption. We take our responsibility to ensure the security of our IT systems very seriously,” a brief notice on the health system’s website stated.

“As a result of this issue, we have rescheduled some patient appointments. Patients will be contacted directly by their provider and/or care facility if their appointment is impacted.”

At MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center, the incident forced certain systems offline as a “precautionary step,” the Des Moines Register reported.

The hospital had to divert ambulances away from its emergency department for a short period of time on Monday. The incident is also causing appointment cancellations in some locations.

The list of healthcare facilities impacted by the CommonSpirit incident continues to grow. CHI Health locations in Omaha confirmed that they were impacted by the security incident.