HealthAlliance Cyber Attack Update

The temporary ambulance diversion from HealthAlliance Hospital and Margaretville Hospital has ended, and as of 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 21, the hospitals are now fully operational and have resumed admitting patients. Local EMS operators were notified to resume transporting emergency patients to HealthAlliance Hospital and Margaretville Hospital. There is an exception for emergency stroke patients, who will still temporarily be taken to other area hospitals.

HealthAlliance Hospital and Margaretville Hospital remained open during this diversion, and walk-in patients were treated, assessed and either released or stabilized.

The end of the EMS diversion has been communicated to all EMS operators, other area medical facilities who were affected, elected officials and the New York State Department of Health.

As previously communicated, this temporary diversion was necessary because HealthAlliance Hospital, Margaretville Hospital and Mountainside Residential Care Center experienced a cyberattack that impacted our IT systems.

To address the threat and take the necessary steps to fully restore our secure network, on Friday, October 20, our IT experts shut down all connected IT systems at HealthAlliance Hospital, Margaretville Hospital and Mountainside Residential Care Center. We then began standing up our IT systems, a process that is ongoing, but we have regained all necessary capabilities to resume full operations.

We will provide further information to the community as it becomes available.

Statement from Josh Ratner, CEO of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley and Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of WMCHealth:

“I want to applaud everyone at HealthAlliance Hospital, Margaretville Hospital and Mountainside Residential Care Center for all of their hard work and dedication while facing an incredibly difficult situation, helping us return to full operations sooner than expected while continuing to provide the best possible care for patients in our community. This helped demonstrate the strength of the entire WMCHealth Network, with hospitals, physicians, nurses and administrators from across the network playing a vital role in making sure our patients were cared for as we worked to regain full operations, resume admitting patients and minimize any impacts of this disruption.”