LURIE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL BEGINS RESTORING MYCHART PLATFORM OVER 6 WEEKS AFTER CYBERATTACK

Lurie Children’s Hospital began reactivating MyChart on Thursday, more than six weeks after the hospital had to take down all its systems because of a cybersecurity threat.

Patients and their families use MyChart to message providers, view test results, request refills on medications and schedule appointments. Telemedicine appointments are also again available on MyChart.

The hospital said in a statement to expect intermittent disruptions on the platform as MyChart hasn’t been updated since before it was taken down. MyChart also may not yet reflect up-to-date information, Lurie said, such as billing details.

The hospital took its phone, email and electronic systems offline Jan. 31 because of a “criminal threat” from a “known criminal threat actor,” Lurie said in February. It has not explained what the threat was and how it affected its systems. The hospital has remained open throughout the outage.

A ransomware group that calls itself “Rhysida” has claimed to be behind the attack and sold data from Lurie.

“We are aware that individuals claiming to be Rhysida, a known threat actor, claim to have sold data they allege was taken from Lurie Children’s. We continue to work closely with internal and external experts as well as law enforcement, and are actively investigating the claims,” Lurie said in a statement.

Lurie restored its electronic medical records platform on March 4. The records platform that was restored, called Epic, is used by doctors and nurses to manage patients’ charts and coordinate care. Emails to and from external addresses and most of the hospital’s phone lines were restored last month.