Ascension St. Vincent investigating ‘cybersecurity event’

Ascension St. Vincent is working to investigate and manage a ”cybersecurity event’‘ it said began May 8.

The faith-based health care organization, which operates nearly 139 hospitals and more than 40 senior living facilities in 19 states, including in Carmel, Fishers and North Indy, posted information about the incident on its website:

“On Wednesday, May 8, we detected unusual activity on select technology network systems, which we now believe is due to a cyber security event. At this time we continue to investigate the situation. We responded immediately, initiated our investigation and activated our remediation efforts. Access to some systems have been interrupted as this process continues.

“Our care teams are trained for these kinds of disruptions and have initiated procedures to ensure patient care delivery continues to be safe and as minimally impacted as possible. There has been a disruption to clinical operations, and we continue to assess the impact and duration of the disruption.

“We have engaged Mandiant, a third-party expert, to assist in the investigation and remediation process, and we have notified the appropriate authorities. Together, we are working to fully investigate what information, if any, may have been affected by the situation. Should we determine that any sensitive information was affected, we will notify and support those individuals in accordance with all relevant regulatory and legal guidelines.

“We are reaching out to our business partners to ensure they are aware of the situation so they can take appropriate steps to safeguard their systems. We encourage all business partners to coordinate with the Ascension Technology partners to address any specific questions.

“This is an ongoing situation and we will provide updates as we learn more.”

This story will be updated.