INDIANAPOLIS — Ascension St. Vincent shared an update on restoring its network systems after a cyberattack in early May.
According to an Ascension spokesperson, a complete restoration of its electronic health records is expected by the end of the week ending June 14.
The spokesperson said access to electronic health records has been successfully restored in Florida, Alabama and Austin hospitals.
"Ascension continues to work expeditiously alongside industry-leading cybersecurity experts in our efforts to safely restore systems across our network. Please know our hospitals and facilities remain open and are providing patient care," the spokesperson said in a statement.
Click here for the latest update regarding Indiana hospitals, physicians offices and care sites.
Among the update, all Ascension Rx retail, home delivery and specialty pharmacy sites in Indiana have resumed normal operations.
When it comes to in-person visits, Ascension said, "patients may encounter longer than usual wait times and some delays. To help with delays, patients should bring notes on symptoms and a list of current medications, including prescription numbers or bottles. In the event that appointments need to be rescheduled, an Ascension associate will contact patients directly."
Hackers disabled all systems in the cyberattack May 8.
"We couldn't print forms out. We didn't have medications records for patients. It was just a lot of confusion," said Justin Neisser, who has been a traveling nurse for the last three years, most recently working at Ascension St. Vincent in Indianapolis. "There's still a lot of confusion — like a daily confusion."
According to Neisser, physicians must write onto medication records.
"Sometimes, they are reconciled wrong. Sometimes, patients may be getting wrong medications, or medications may be the wrong route. Maybe oral to IV. Could be the wrong dose," Neisser said.
Another concern is keeping accurate patient records after hospital stays and managing patient documents.
"If a patient has been in the hospital for more than three days, the charts we're getting is about a quarter-inch thick, so we can't keep all of the paper documents, so someone is assigned to thin out the charts and take older documents," Neisser said. "The issue is when these charts are thinned out, they're taking the physician orders with them, so now I have a handwritten medication record, but I have no way to reconcile if these are the correct medications because now I don't have physical copies of the orders."
Neisser said nurses are catching a lot of mistakes.
"Sometimes, it's hard to tell if a medication has already been given. You don't know and you don't want to double dose anyone, or if a medication was held or if it was discontinued. You really have no way to reconcile this with the physician's orders," Neisser said.
These are things Neisser said leads to a stressful environment for many nurses.
"A lot of nurses are scared because you don't want to accidentally harm a patient by giving them medication that was already given. It's just very stressful," Neisser said.