‘Chaos’: Nurses, visitors describe conditions inside Ascension hospitals after cyberattack
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — “Pure and utter chaos from the second you walk into the door.”
That’s how one nurse described what it’s like inside a Nashville Ascension hospital following a cyber-attack.
Wednesday, May 15 marks one week since the hospital system was hit, impacting locations across Tennessee as operations continue to be disrupted. Nurses are now having to use manual and paper-based systems.
“This is truly a crisis situation and it needs to be treated as such,” a nurse advocate known as “Nurse Erica” on social media explained to News 2.
Everything from charting and ordering tests, to the way labs are sent and scans are read, has been impacted, according to healthcare workers News 2 spoke with.
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Nurse Erica said she has heard the cries for help from those on the front line here in middle Tennessee.
“We are a week in now at this and there is no end in sight. They are saying it’s very tense at work, the atmosphere, nurses are worried about patient safety, and also about their own nursing license because all of the safety checks that we have in place have basically been eliminated,” the RN explained.
Some nurses told News 2 they have to override medications from their automatic dispensing cabinet, worrying them about patient safety.
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“Not only is it there where the RaDonda Vaught situation took place, but it’s a very similar situation and they are having to override all the medications from their Pyxis or their automatic dispensing cabinet, and they cannot scan the medications, so you can’t scan the armband on the patient or the barcode to match to see if that is even the correct order or dose for the patient. These are basic safety checks that have been eliminated,” said Nurse Erica.
“A chaotic experience” is how Gina Lennon summed up her father’s visit to Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford on Monday, May 13.
“The nursing staff didn’t know what to do since the computers were down, phone lines were down, and it was just a really difficult situation. They were writing things down. They were asking a lot of questions, repetitive questions, some questions over and over. Some things were not written down that should have been written down. They tried to give my father some medication that he should not have had, and luckily I was there to intercept that,” Lennon explained.
Hospital staff are seemingly overwhelmed.
“It seemed like there wasn’t a Plan B for when the system went down,” Lennon explained.
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“They are all saying we were not prepared for this, we were handed a packet of downtime forms, paper forms, and that’s it,” Nurse Erica added.
Ascension officials said certain hospitals are currently implementing a diversion process for ambulance services. News 2 checked with other Nashville area hospitals to see if they are seeing an influx in patients.
TriStar Centennial Medical Center officials sent a statement saying, “TriStar Centennial has seen a higher number of patients over the past week. We have the resources needed to manage the increase in patients while continuing to provide high quality, compassionate care for our patients and community.”
Officials with Vanderbilt University Medical Center said they have prepared for additional patients, but “so far it has not been that many.”
Officials with Ascension said they are making progress, however, it will take time to return to normal operations following this “ransomware incident.” They did not respond to our question about medication safety.
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Ascension has more than 250 locations across Middle Tennessee. Tennessee’s Health Facilities Commission told News 2 they are monitoring the situation.
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