Hackensack Meridian Mountainside Medical Center and Pascack Valley Medical Center have been hit by a “network outage due to a potential security incident” and have placed emergency rooms on divert status, a hospital official said Monday.
The two New Jersey hospitals are owned by Ardent Health Services and appear to be part of a larger outage affecting facilities in that network, which has 37 hospitals primarily in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Similar outages were reported at Texas hospitals owned by Ardent.
The network outage does not include other Hackensack Meridian hospitals, which are on a separate network, according to Chiara Marababol, a spokeswoman for Mountainside and Pascack Valley medical centers.
“There is no adverse impact on patient care,” Marababol said in a statement Monday morning. “As we work to assess the impact of this outage and restore access, we are following established downtime protocols.”
Marababol did not say when the outage began or provide an estimate on restoration.
“We continue to care for patients in both of our ERs, however, we have asked our local EMS systems to temporarily divert patients in need of emergency care to other area facilities while we address our system issues,” Marababol said. “This ensures critically ill patients have immediate access to the highest level of care as we work to bring our systems back online.”
Hackensack Meridian Health was hit by a ransomware attack in 2019 that locked up its systems for five days and forced the delay of elective surgeries.
Late last year, a ransomware attack occurred at CentraState Medical Center in Freehold.
CentraState Healthcare System said the data breach involved 617,000 patients. The stolen information included names, addresses, birthdays, Social Security numbers, health insurance information, medical records and patient account numbers.
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Amanda Smith is a dedicated U.S. correspondent with a passion for uncovering the stories that shape the nation. With a background in political science, she provides in-depth analysis and insightful commentary on domestic affairs, ensuring readers are well-informed about the latest developments across the United States.
