By Jeff Wardon, Jr., Assistant Editor

McLaren Health Care has fully restored its information technology platforms have been fully restored after a recent cyberattack, according to a press release. The restoration allows providers at McLaren hospitals, Karmanos cancer centers and outpatient clinics in Michigan to regain access to patients' electronic medical records. The process of inputting manually charted health records into the electronic system will take several weeks. McLaren is also working with cybersecurity experts to assess whether patient or employee information was compromised and will notify affected individuals. 

McLaren also suffered a cyberattack in summer 2023, and the organization immediately launched an investigation. McLaren determined that information pertaining to certain individuals might have been impacted in that cyberattack.

Related: Protecting the Healthcare Supply Chain from Cyberattacks

Cyberattacks continue to pile up for healthcare facilities and organizations, with some becoming repeat victims, such as McLaren Health Care and CentroMed. One way healthcare facilities managers can avoid such attacks is to learn how other organizations have responded and learn from their experiences. 

As healthcare organizations are targeted and breached, others need to learn from each incident, Ben DeBow, founder and chief executive officer at Fortified, told Healthcare Facilities Today. This challenge can be solved by sharing information, which allows organizations to see what bad actors are up to and how to shield against their attacks. 

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Agency (CISA) recommends four practices to protect digital data: 

• Enable multifactor authentication. 
• Update software regularly, or turn on automatic software updates. 
• Think before clicking on suspicious links. 
• Use strong passwords: 
  • Make them at least 16 characters long. 
  • Make them unique. 
  • If possible, have them be randomly generated. 

Jeff Wardon, Jr., is the assistant editor for the facilities market.