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Yuma Regional Medical Center computer systems to return slowly after attempted cyberattack

Yumaregional.org

Yuma Regional Medical Center continues to deal with the fallout of an attempted cyberattack with more than 400 computer systems down and staff resorting to paper record-keeping.

Machele Headington, YRMC Vice President of Marketing and Communications, tells KAWC the hospital took all computer systems offline Monday, when the attack became apparent to Information Technology staff, to protect patient data.

"We have had some systems starting to come back up as of about 3 o’clock this (Wednesday) morning," Headington said. "That is a slow process and we will intend it to be a slow process as they evaluate each system, they scrub all information to make sure that we are not being compromised and they start to bring those up."

For patients with appointments at YRMC in the coming days, Headington says the hospital is evaluating each appointment to determine whether they need to be rescheduled.

Headington says staff trains for the possibility of system downtime- that means going old school by using paper and pens.

"We have a full-time print shop that has been printing forms today to make sure every department has what they need to continue to do, to work on paper if they need to continue to do so," she said. "I think as systems come up over the next couple of days we’ll begin to phase some of that out but we’ll also make sure our team have back-up forms if they need them."

Headington does warn patients with online MyCare accounts that the system is down. They should ignore any email or requests for information about those accounts until MyCare is back online.

There is no real timeline as to when all YRMC systems will be back up as they are rebooting one at a time. Headington said she expects the hospital to be in a better position next week.

The hospital is working with local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of investigation as they investigate the attempted cyberattack.

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Stay tuned to KAWC for updates on this and other news from Yuma Regional Medical Center.

Lou grew up in Tucson and has a long family history in the state of Arizona. He began his public radio career in 1988 at KNAU in Flagstaff as a classical music DJ and has been hooked on public radio since, transitioning to news after trying his hand at several other careers in publishing and commercial broadcasting. Lou has a degree in American Studies from Arizona State University and was KAWC's Morning Edition host for two and half years before becoming News and Operations Director.
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