Jackson Jambalaya

If you are getting emails or texts from UMMC, relax.  UMMC issued the following statement. 

Please be aware that emails, texts and calls you receive about closures of UMMC clinics or requests to send communications are legitimate. Those are sent by an off-site vendor that we activated due to our electronic medical record, Epic, being down. Examples are shown here. It is safe but not necessary to click the links. We are sorry for the confusion. 

UMMC Vice-Chancellor Dr. Louanne Woodward addressed the cyberattack in her weekly email to employees and students. 

We Press On

Good morning.

Today’s VC Notes isn’t what was planned. However, considering the current situation, I switched direction. Momma said there’d be days like this.

Despite our robust and often-tested network security system, we have experienced a cyberattack. Yes, it was a ransomware attack.

To use a medical phrase – we have stopped the bleeding. And while we know much more now than we did 24 hours ago, the extent and the scope of the intrusion is still not fully understood. Our technical teams and a host of experts in the field of cyberattacks and federal agencies are working around the clock to answer these questions and segregate systems, repair damage and recover our data and applications. Our electronic health record and our phone systems are included in the attack and are not operational. To be super cautious we took down all our systems for testing to be sure they are safe to use. I am so very sorry that we cannot reach out by text, email or calls to all the patients who have had care interrupted.

The technical aspect of this situation is not my expertise and not the topic for today. What I want to share with you are these points regarding patient care:

• For our inpatient operations – we are using downtime procedures (this means using paper for documentation and patient orders). We prepare for this scenario, and we are taking good care of our patients. (We have had to obtain extra paper and extra toner for printers!)

• We cancelled clinic operations statewide and elective procedures for Thursday and Friday. That doesn’t happen but in the most extreme of situations.

• We are doing all we can to safely restore access so that we can resume all aspects of patient care as quickly as possible.

• We are especially concerned for those receiving ongoing care that is time sensitive – so those patients are our highest priority - for example, a cancer patient receiving chemotherapy. We are working on a process to schedule appointments for those groups as quickly as we can.

• For our patients with an urgent or emergent need, our Emergency Departments are open and providing care.

Lastly, I want to say a HUGE thank you to the many, many, many people who have reached out to us with offers of assistance or simply words of support. It has been tremendous.

I want to say this clearly: You have rallied in an astonishing manner. All hands-on deck. No questions asked except – “How can we help?” and “What do we need to do?”. All with the eye toward being sure our patients are well taken care of and those who have had outpatient care (or any care) disrupted can be reached and rescheduled as soon as possible. Our doctors, our nurses, our staff and our leaders care deeply for our patients.

I can’t tell you when – but I can promise as soon as we possibly can – we will be back up and running full steam ahead. The bad guys won’t keep us down.