Hospitals, including those in South West Alliance of Rural Health, still offline following cyber attack

Medical staff at hospitals affiliated with the Gippsland Health Alliance and of the South West Alliance of Rural Health (SWARH) are still working completely offline, with no emails or internet. Everything from patient information to medication rounds and prescriptions are all being done on pen and paper.

It comes as every major hospital and health provider worldwide continues to move to a system of entirely electronic health records.

The South West Alliance of Rural Health, which includes the Warrnambool, Portland and Colac hospitals, has worked on a regional electronic health system since 2003.

"With 13 hospitals and 114 sites spread across 60,000 square kilometres connected via a secure broadband network, the creation of a regional electronic health record was an early priority," a 2017 SWARH report reads.

"As a result, comprehensive medical records for 200,000 patients are instantly available across the region regardless of where a patient presents for treatment, saving time and effort.

"Clinicians can access pathology reports and clinical risk factors online within seconds, and issue discharge summaries to general practitioners. Ward staff are immediately alerted of new test results from external pathology providers."

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said no private data has been accessed or stolen by the cyber infiltrators, but could not indicate how close the government was to solving the issue.

"This was a sophisticated cyber security attack. Jurisdictions and organisations right around the world are not immune to these types of attacks, including here in Victoria," she said.

"Critical applications in the affected hospitals have been restored, and other systems are being brought online progressively.

"There was no impact to patient care and no exposure of patient information."

Minister Mikakos said the government was rolling out new cyber security programs to better detect and block attempts to interfere with health services' systems.

She said work is underway on all of the Victorian Auditor-General's recommendations after VAGO had warned back in May that public health information systems need much greater protection. She said many will be complete by the end of the year.

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