Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center (SBG)
MARYLAND (WBFF) —More than a week after a cyberattack knocked computer systems offline across Luminis Health, patients say they are still struggling to schedule appointments, access medical records and get the care they need — with no timeline for when the health system will be fully restored.
For Tracy Thompson, the disruption has meant waiting for care as her back and knee pain gets worse.
“They said, ‘We’ll take your name and call you back when the computer system is up,’ and I haven’t heard a thing,” Thompson said.
Thompson said she has spent the past week trying to schedule a follow-up appointment with her doctor at Anne Arundel Medical Center. As the days pass, Thompson said her pain is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
“I’m really limping around the house,” she said. “My left knee is — I’m almost positive I’m going to need a knee replacement.”
The problems stem from a cyberattack that first disrupted Luminis Health’s systems last Tuesday. Two days later, the health system posted a notice saying an “unauthorized criminal actor” was responsible and that teams were working to restore affected systems.
More than a week later, however, some systems remain offline and Luminis Health has not publicly provided a timeline for full restoration. The health system has directed patients with questions about upcoming appointments or care to this hotline number: 443-222-0193.
“It’s incredibly disruptive and stressful,” said Dr. Eric Wargotz, a practicing physician and president of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, “Essentially all patient information was locked out.”
Hospitals typically turn to backup procedures during major computer outages, he says, including using paper records to keep information moving while electronic systems are unavailable.
“There’s disruption, and so the first week was considerable disruption, and it’s less and less with every day that passes,” Wargotz said, “But we don’t have a live date for the systems to come back.”
Emergency services have continued, and Wargotz said elective care is gradually recovering. He recommends patients seek care elsewhere if necessary. But for Thompson, doing so created another problem.
“I made an appointment, and University of Maryland could get me in on Monday, which was great,” Thompson said, “But then I discovered there’s no way to get access to my knee X-rays.”
Other patients have described similar disruptions on social media, including concerns about cancer treatments and appointments. One commenter said a friend “desperately needs to start chemo” and described the outage as another delay she did not need. Another person wrote that an infusion center was “down” and an appointment had been canceled by phone.
Wargotz said he believes Luminis Health is doing what it can to recover, but questions about preparedness will likely be examined once the immediate crisis has passed.
“Whether there should have been other measures taken in anticipation or preparation of a potential cyberattack, I don’t know,” he said.
Wargotz said internal and outside experts will likely examine what happened, whether existing safeguards and backup procedures were adequate and what changes could prevent or lessen the impact of another attack.
He also said the incident should serve as a warning to other health systems to review their own cybersecurity and contingency plans.
FOX45 sent questions to Luminis Health asking whether any patient information was accessed or stolen, whether a ransom was demanded and who is believed to be behind the attack. As of Thursday afternoon, those questions remained unanswered.
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