Prevea health records platform back online

Functionality to the electronic health records platform for a local hospital hit by a security breach has been restored, officials announced Sept. 12.

The system outage affected Prevea Health, Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS) and HSHS hospitals in Wisconsin (including: HSHS St. Vincent Hospital and HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay; HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan; HSHS St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls; HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire; and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls) at the end of August.

Officials with HSHS and Prevea announced the restored functionality to the EPIC platform, its electronic health records platform, which includes MyPrevea/MyChart applications.

Patients are now able to schedule appointments and ask questions through the apps.

“We will respond to patient messages as quickly as possible, and we encourage patients to reach out to their provider’s office to speak with a member of their health care team, should they require urgent assistance,” according to a statement on a special webpage established at the outset of the outage. “We remain focused on restoring the rest of our systems in a methodical manner, which will take time to complete.”

Patients can also pay their bills via credit card, cash or check, and officials are telling them all payments will be processed securely.

Patients who receive a questionable communication that appears to be from Prevea or HSHS should not respond. They are asked to save them so that hospital IT staff can track and investigate the source. forward the information to questions@hshs.org.

A cause for the outage has yet to be determined. When it began, the outage affected all electronic communications, including phone lines, internet and apps.

The main phone line is 920-496-4700, and all other appointment and service lines are listed at www.prevea.com/updates. Callers may experience delays due to high call volumes.

kpasson@newmedia-wi.com