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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   An Illinois hospital will shutter its doors this week in part because of a   
   devastating cyberattack, which experts say makes it the first hospital to   
   publicly link criminal hackers to its closure.   
      
   St. Margaret’s Health in Spring Valley will close Friday, said Linda Burt,   
   the hospital’s vice president of quality and community services.   
      
   Suzanne Stahl, the chair of SMP Health, the hospital’s parent   
   organization, said last month that the hospital was planning to close this   
   year. “Due to a number of factors, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the   
   cyberattack on the computer system of St. Margaret’s Health, and a   
   shortage of staff, it has become impossible to sustain our ministry,” she   
   said in a Facebook video.   
      
   Ransomware attacks — in which criminal hackers remotely cripple an   
   organization’s computers and demand an extortion payment — have plagued   
   U.S. health care since 2016, said Allan Liska, a ransomware analyst at the   
   cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. Data collected by Liska and his team   
   showed at least 300 documented attacks a year on American health care   
   facilities since 2020. This year is on pace to match that.   
      
   Spring Valley’s mayor, Melanie Malooley-Thompson, said the hospital’s   
   closing means some residents will have to travel around half an hour for   
   emergency room services and obstetrics services.   
      
   “The hospital closure will have a profound impact on the well-being of our   
   community. This will be a challenging transition for many residents who   
   rely on our hospital for quality healthcare,” Malooley-Thompson said   
   Saturday on Facebook.   
      
   Kelly Klotz, 52, a Spring Valley resident with multiple medical issues,   
   said she was concerned the drive could lead to medical complications for   
   her and her parents.   
      
   “I need access to good medical care at any given time,” she said. “It’s   
   not like I can say I’ll schedule my stroke six months from now. It’s   
   devastating to this area.”   
      
   “If you’re having a heart attack or a stroke, may the odds ever be in your   
   favor, because you’re not going to make it there in time,” Klotz said.   
      
   Hospitals that fall victim to ransomware attacks often have to scramble to   
   find ways to suddenly work without the computers that have become integral   
   to modern health care. Health care workers can be forced to revert to pen   
   and paper for patient charts and prescriptions, which has led to patients’   
   receiving incorrect medicine dosages and delayed operations. An attack can   
   force ambulances to reroute to other hospitals.   
      
   Multiple studies have shown a correlation between hospital downtime   
   because of ransomware attacks and increased mortality rates.   
      
   A ransomware attack hit SMP Health in 2021. The attack halted the   
   hospital’s ability to submit claims to insurers, Medicare or Medicaid for   
   months, sending it into a financial spiral, Burt said.   
      
   “It is devastating,” Burt said of the attack.   
      
   “You’re dead in the water,” she said. “We were down a minimum of 14 weeks.   
   And then you’re trying to recover. Nothing went out. No claims. Nothing   
   got entered. So it took months and months and months."   
      
   Since 2005, 99 rural hospitals have closed permanently in the U.S.,   
   according to a University of North Carolina project. Brock Slabach, a   
   spokesperson for the National Rural Health Association, a nonprofit   
   industry group, said rural hospitals that close tend to be in areas that   
   are poorer and have higher unemployment.   
      
   Experts who track cyberattacks on health care said they believed Spring   
   Valley is the first hospital to cite a cyberattack as a reason it closed.   
      
   “There are countless examples of small businesses that have gone bankrupt   
   following ransomware attacks as they were unable to restore their systems   
   or afford to pay to get back up and running,” Errol Weiss, the chief   
   security officer for Health-ISAC, a nonprofit group that shares   
   cyberthreat information with hospitals, said in an email. “It’s tragic   
   that we can now count a hospital in this statistic.”   
      
   SMP owns one other hospital in the nearby town of Peru. It suspended   
   operations in January.   
      
   Another Midwestern Catholic health care organization, OSF, has entered   
   into an agreement to buy and restart service at the Peru hospital, though   
   that won’t take effect for the foreseeable future.   
      
   “OSF is working to accomplish this as quickly as possible, because we know   
   what access to good health care means to the Peru community and   
   surrounding area,” OSF media relations coordinator Shelli Dankoff said in   
   an email. However, there is “no specific time table” for when care will   
   resume, she said.   
      
   In the meantime, residents will have to deal with much longer commutes for   
   emergency room and obstetrics services.   
      
   https://news.yahoo.com/illinois-hospital-first-health-care-172543050.html   
      
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