A cyberattack on a big US health system diverts ambulances and takes records offline

By JOHN HANNA and TOM MURPHY
Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A cyberattack on the Ascension health system across the U.S. diverted ambulances, caused patients to miss medical visits and blocked online access to their records. A spokesperson for Ascension says it detected what it called unusual activity Wednesday on its computer network systems, and its electronic records system was offline. Ascension is a non-profit Catholic health care system headquartered in St. Louis with 140 hospitals in 19 states and the District of Columbia. In Wichita, Kansas, local news reports said all ambulance calls were diverted through Thursday afternoon. In Milwaukee, WTMJ-TV reported patients in the area were missing CT scans and mammograms and couldn’t refill prescriptions.