Mountain View Hospital restores clinical functions; culprit behind cyberattack still unknown
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IDAHO FALLS — An area hospital has been working for over a month now to resolve a cyberattack and progress is being made.
Mountain View Hospital has managed to restore clinical functions for itself, Idaho Falls Community Hospital and its partner clinics. The IT team and other cybersecurity experts have now turned their attention to administrative functions.
RELATED | Cyberattack on Mountain View Hospital still ongoing after two weeks
Even though much of the hospital’s functions have returned, it’s not clear when all operations will be fully restored following the cyberattack.
“While we cannot provide a definitive timeline at this point, we are committed to keeping our community updated,” said Brian Ziel, Mountain View Hospital spokesperson. “We are working as quickly and safely as possible to bring all our departments across our facilities to full operational capacity.”
On June 13, Mountain View issued a press release stating all partner clinics were back open. Redicare reopened for the community on June 11.
On June 22, IFCH announced it was again accepting all ambulance traffic after having to divert ambulance services to other hospitals. While ambulances were diverted, the IFCH emergency room remained open for walk-in patients.
With the return of these clinical functions, phone and email systems have also been restored.
During the cyberattack, billing for patients has been on hold. On June 14, Mountain View put out an update reminding patients that no late fees or interest is being added to bills and no accounts will be sent to collections due to lack of payment.
“In order to give our patients plenty of time to pay their bills, our team will move due dates back when we resume normal billing operations,” Ziel said.
It’s still unknown who is behind the cyberattack but the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the situation.
“We are not able to provide any updates on the investigation at this time,” Ziel said.