WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Palm Beach County doctor said Friday that systems are "back as usual" at both St. Mary's Medical Center and Good Samaritan Medical Center more than a week after a cyberattack.
This comes after Tenet Health, which operates the two West Palm Beach hospitals, acknowledged Tuesday that they "experienced a cybersecurity incident last week."
The incident crippled telephone and computer systems at both locations.
Families and hospital employees called WPTV this week to voice their concerns about how the computer system failure at both hospitals was delaying their access to essential medical records and test results.
Dr. Olayemi Osiyemi, who works at both hospitals, said Friday that systems were back online at both St. Mary's Medical Center and Good Samaritan Hospital.
"I'm glad it's over," Osiyemi said. "Things are back online."
He said the last few days have been frustrating after phone lines were shut down and access to digital records was compromised.
"Without access to online information, you have to grab a chart, you have to flip the pages," Osiyemi said. "It was time-consuming. Going back to paper ... it wasn't pleasant."
He said emergency calls were diverted to nearby hospitals, and patients waiting to be discharged were delayed.
"We couldn't discharge them because we didn't have results, and so it was very frustrating for everyone," Osiyemi said.
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The health care industry has been a target for hackers as hospitals were spread thin during the pandemic.
"The federal government has been warning everyone that this is something we're going to see more often considering the Ukraine-Russia incident that's going on," Osiyemi said.
David Anefils, a cybersecurity expert with SupportClub.com, has seen the complex damage that cybercriminals can do.
"I advise every doctor, every dentist, anyyone I know working with patient information, to use an EMR (Electric Medical Records) website," Anefils said.
Anefils believes the best way to protect patient data is to store their information remotely.
"It's better security because you know your very sensitive data is being stored in the cloud somewhere," Anefils said. "It's secret and safe."
Tenet Health sent the update to internal staff and patients said their concerns are being addressed by risk management.
It is still unclear who or what agency was responsible for the cyberattack.
