Kettering Health opening up services bit by bit as tech outage continues

A cyberattack on May 20 caused a system-wide technology outage at Kettering Health. Administrators believe the cyberattack was ransomware, though they did not have direct contact with the perpetrators.

These types of cyberattack generally take between 10-20 days to fix, according to industry experts.

One of its most recent updates was getting the ability to stop diverting ambulances from its emergency departments, making those departments “full operational,” hospital administrators said.

“This is another great milestone in our recovery process. Our teams have worked incredibly hard to bring imaging up, so we could end diversion in our emergency departments,” said John Weimer, Kettering Health senior vice president and leader for incident command.

While Kettering Health said it is ending its EMS diversion, the Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association said EMS is coordinating with each of the hospitals to find the best location to transfer patients based on the their medical needs.

EMS is maintaining close communication with hospital emergency departments and adjusting transport routes based on capacity and service availability, GDAHA said.

Early this week, Kettering Health was able to get its radiation technology back up and running in its radiation oncology department.

“We are now treating patients who had active radiotherapy again,” Dr. Anthony Paravati, chief of radiation oncology at Kettering Health, said in a video posted to social media.

Kettering Health is reminding all of its patients they should come to their scheduled appointments or surgeries unless one of its clinical teams calls to reschedule.

Kettering Health’s doctors’ offices have also been able to see patients on a walk-in basis.

If you feel ill or are managing chronic conditions and have an established provider, Kettering Health Primary Care said their locations have the ability to provide walk-in care to established patients. This walk-in availability also extends to specialty care locations for established patients.

All employees will be paid on schedule, according to Kettering Health. Guidance from Kettering Health Human Resources has been shared with leaders to help employees if their pay is incorrect.

Kettering Health’s incident command centers are also helping to address the needs and concerns of staff and patients. Kettering Health campus police have also increased patrols at the hospitals.

While services are becoming more available, patients say they are still unable to access MyChart, an online patient portal.

On May 23, Kettering Health said there was no evidence at that time that applications that have patients’ personal information like MyChart were compromised. The investigation into any records, such as health data or financial information, being stolen is still ongoing, the hospital system said last week.

Kettering Health has 14 area medical centers and more than 120 outpatient locations throughout Western Ohio, as well as Kettering Physician Network, which includes more than 700 board-certified providers.

Help for patients

Kettering Health launched temporary phone lines to help its patients get in contact with the hospital system if patients had medical needs. Those include:

For medical emergencies, patients are urged to go to the nearest emergency department.