“Patients can still come to the emergency department and will not be turned away. However, if they need any sort of higher-level care, they’re going to need to be transferred out.” – Interview Excerpt
Rokosz Most: So what’s going on?
Hospital employee: They’re not telling the employees anything but as far as I know, starting Saturday afternoon, the wi-fi went out. But I didn’t really think anything about it. By Monday the Internet’s gone completely down. Fax machines are down. Phones are down because they’re digital, right? But the internal computer system was working.
RM: So you could still keep track of patients this way?
HE: Everyone was using paper for order forms and to deliver lab orders. And then all lab results had to be handwritten and delivered back to the units.
RM: When did that start?
HE: That was on Monday. That’s how it’s been for the last two days.
RM: So the hospital was diverting emergency department patients since Saturday?
HE: Initially, the hospital was on diversion because they’re trying to figure out what the fuck was happening. And then on Tuesday we supposedly went off diversion and we’re trying to pick operations back up again, still without Internet, still without internal phones working and all that. We’ve been having to override medications and add temporary patients and all this stuff to be able to pull meds for anyone because none of the patients are in the internal computer system that operates the medication distribution.
RM: What is that system called?
HE: Pyxis, I think. It’s just been insane.
RM: So if you’re trying to figure out what medication they had. You’re all just doing everything on charts now?
HE: For the last few days, the internal medical-record system has been working, and we’ve been able to see up-to-date orders in the computer for medications and labs that are ordered. But for the lab — I don’t know why this was the case — none of the orders were coming through on there, so they had to draw the appropriate bloodwork and send paper order forms down with the tubes of blood. Every couple of hours up in the ICU they’d be sending someone down to go pick up the results. Then, as of Tuesday they shut down an entire unit, because of staffing.
RM: Which unit was shut down?
HE: It’s called 4SMC. It’s a med surge unit.
RM: What’s a med surge unit?
HE: It’s your average inpatient floor on a hospital.
RM: How many beds is that?
HE: That’s a 13-bed unit that they shut down.
RM: Does that mean at this point that the hospital is not taking new patients? That they’re still diverting?
HE: My understanding is that at this time is they’re trying to empty out the hospital as much as they can in preparation for total downtime beginning Friday night, in which the hospital will be, aside from cell phones, completely and entirely cut off from any sort of communication while someone attempts to address whatever the fuck is going on, which they haven’t told us.
RM: Were you aware that the hospital released a statement announcing that they had been the victim of a cyber attack?
HE: Right. Aside from it being a cyber attack, they haven’t told us anything. As of Friday night, we’re going completely dark. Going back to paper charting. As far as I understand, we will not be taking new admissions. Patients can still come to the emergency department and will not be turned away. However, if they need any sort of higher-level care, they’re going to need to be transferred out. They’re going to be transferring or discharging as many patients from the floors as they possibly can to different facilities while all of this is happening
RM: Do you know how long this is going to go on?
HE: There’s no projected timeline for how long this is going to take. I’ve heard some people say that hopefully it’ll be back up by Sunday or Monday, but there’s been no official word.
RM: When I went to the hospital and originally started asking all these questions Tuesday morning, the regional director for marketing and communications met me in the lobby but wouldn’t confirm or deny that there was had been an emergency department diversion in effect. Since she wouldn’t answer I called Emergency Services of Ulster County to check out how long they had actually been on full diversion. They told me that the hospital had called off the diversion ten minutes before I called them. They said it had been in effect since Saturday. And then the mayor says he didn’t know anything until Monday.
HE: I heard they did call it off on Tuesday. And now they’re saying … the verbatim words that I got from someone above me was that the hospital is going on, quote, full diversion. This is beyond emergency-department diversion. My understanding is they’re trying to empty out as much as they can. They’re claiming that they’re not gonna furlough or lay anyone off. But there’s no projected timeline as to when this will be resolved.
RM: Do you think that the cyber attack that the hospital reported on Monday, paralyzed the hospital? That they’re not giving them control back. That they want money?
HE: Right. It’s certainly possible because there have been in the last few years a trend where hackers will target affiliate hospitals of larger conglomerates to try to get money from because they think that they’re easier to get to, that they have weaker security systems. I don’t know if that’s the case in this situation.
RM: Well, I hope you stay employed.
HE: We’ll see. Luckily, nursing is in high demand.
WMC updates diversion situation
At 10 p.m. tonight, October 20, WMCHealth has announced it will shut down all connected IT systems at HealthAlliance Hospital in Kingston, Margaretville Hospital and Mountainside Residential Care Center. WMC expects the systems to be offline for approximately 24 hours, then restarted on a rolling basis, a process expected to extend through the weekend.
This includes temporarily diverting ambulances from HealthAlliance Hospital to other medical facilities, and making decisions on whether to discharge current HealthAlliance Hospital patients to their homes or facilitate transfers to other hospitals within the WMCHealth network.
The need to divert ambulances and transfer patients has been communicated to all local EMS operators, potentially impacted medical facilities, elected officials, the state Department of Health, and patients’ families.
WMC expects to provide further updates as they become available
Join the family! 
