HealthAlliance Cyber Attack Update

After discovering this attack, we quickly notified the New York State Department of Health and Ulster and Delaware County officials of the situation, and have been working with law enforcement officials, including the FBI and a third-party cybersecurity firm, to determine the scope of the attack and specifically what systems were impacted. That investigation is ongoing.

To address the threat and take the necessary steps to fully restore our secure network, starting at 10 p.m. Friday, October 20, our IT experts will shut down all connected IT systems at HealthAlliance Hospital, Margaretville Hospital and Mountainside Residential Care Center. We expect the systems to be offline for approximately 24 hours, then we will begin standing up our systems on a rolling basis – a process we expect will extend through the weekend.

Our first priority is the safety of our patients, which is why out of an abundance of caution, we are taking preemptive and proactive measures. This includes temporarily diverting ambulances from HealthAlliance Hospital to other nearby 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.

HealthAlliance Hospital will remain open and walk-in patients will be treated, assessed and either released, or stabilized and transferred to other WMCHealth facilities.

As always the care for residents in our community is our primary concern, and the need to divert ambulances and transfer patients has been communicated to all local EMS operators, potentially impacted medical facilities, elected officials, the New York State Department of Health, and patients’ families.

We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and regret any inconvenience. We will provide further updates to all members of the community as they become available.