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Tallahassee Memorial taking more patients but network remains offline after cyberattack

Flickr / Creative Commons

A week after the IT breach, the health system said more emergency patients are being accepted while “significant progress" has been made to bring affected computer systems back online.

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare on Thursday announced it was increasing patient volume and accepting more emergency patients a week after a cyberattack took its IT system offline.

The health system said it refining downtime procedures but still using paper documentation as it slowly brings impacted systems back online.

Since the IT security threat Feb. 2, the hospital was forced to divert all but the most severe emergency patients to other hospitals. Tallahassee Memorial officials said Thursday more emergency patients were being accepted as of Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the hospital resumed “limited” nonemergency surgeries that were halted after the cyberattack, which the hospital has characterized as an “IT security issue.”

The health system will continue to gradually increase patient volume “as our processes become more streamlined and efficient,” the hospital said in an update posted Thursday on social media.

The update said the hospital was making “significant progress and working nonstop” to bring affected computer systems back online, but no timetable could be given.

“As is customary with events of this nature, it will take some time to return to normal operations,” the social media post said.

No reason has been given for the cyberattack, which remains under investigation by law enforcement that reportedly includes the FBI.

“We continue to work with appropriate law enforcement and state and federal agencies to manage the investigation and recovery from this event,” the hospital’s post said.

The hospital system, headquartered in Tallahassee, provides health care across 21 counties in northern Florida, southern Georgia and southern Alabama, according to its website.

I’m the online producer for Health News Florida, a collaboration of public radio stations and NPR that delivers news about health care issues.