Palomar Health Medical Group (PHMG) says it is investigating “suspicious activity on certain computer systems within its network.”
In a letter to patients dated May 6, the medical group said it detected the activity on May 5.
The letter goes on to say “PHMG quickly took the affected systems offline, to prevent the spread of any potential malware and launched an investigation into the nature and scope of the event.”
The outage means phones, faxes and the patient portal are not working. The PHMG letter tells patients to go in person to their doctor’s office if they need a new prescription or refill. Doctors are still able to see patients, but there may be delays.
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NBC 7 heard from patients Monday who said their appointments were delayed by a couple of hours. One patient said the staff was handwriting notes.
The letter PHMG sent to patients said Palomar Health Healthcare District, including Palomar Medical Center Poway and Palomar Medical Center Escondido, have not been impacted.
NBC 7 asked PHMG if this was a data breach. They sent the following statement:
Third-party specialists are working with Palomar Health Medical Group to investigate the source of this disruption, to confirm its impact on our systems, and to restore full functionality to our systems as soon as possible. We are also investigating what impact, if any, this incident had on the security of data within our environment.
