St. Louis-based health system says it’s ‘making progress’ in restoration after cybersecurity incident

ST. LOUIS — Ascension, the St. Louis-based health system, is “making progress” in restoring systems taken down by a cybersecurity incident it discovered last week and has contacted federal officials, the system said.

The 140-hospital system had said late Wednesday it detected “unusual activity on select technology network systems,” which it later said was due to a cybersecurity event.

Ascension had said late Thursday that the incident has taken down its electronic health records, MyChart patient portal, some phone systems and some systems used to order certain procedures and medications. Some non-emergency elective procedures, tests and appointments have been “temporarily paused” while the system works to bring its systems back online, and several hospitals were on diversion for emergency medical services and elective surgeries, officials said.

In its Saturday update, Ascension said, “We continue to diligently investigate and address the recent ransomware incident, working closely with industry leading cybersecurity experts to assist in our investigation and restoration and recovery efforts.”

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