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Massachusetts hospitals Heywood, Athol say outage was a cybersecurity incident

Posted on October 17, 2025 by Dissent

Joseph Topping reports:

Heywood Hospital and Athol Hospital said a network outage this week was caused by a cybersecurity incident. The hospitals said they took affected systems offline and engaged a third-party cybersecurity firm. The facilities—Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Massachusetts, and Athol Hospital in Athol, Massachusetts—remain open and caring for patients; earlier in the week they enacted a Code Black ambulance diversion after phones and internet were disrupted. Officials have not specified the attack type or whether any data was accessed.

Hospital posts and local coverage say communications remain spotty as recovery continues.

Read more at Dysruptionhub.com.

The following was Heywood Hospital’s post on Facebook:

Earlier this week, Heywood Hospital experienced a network outage that has since been determined to be the result of a cybersecurity incident. Upon discovery, we immediately activated our response protocols and took affected systems offline to protect our network and patients. We are working closely with third-party cybersecurity experts to assess the situation and restore full functionality as quickly and safely as possible.While certain systems are not currently available, Heywood Hospital, Athol Hospital, and Heywood Medical Group are open and safely caring for patients. If you have an appointment scheduled with a Heywood Medical Group provider this week and need to reach the practice, please use the Athena portal
https://192-1.portal.athenahealth.com/ 
to communicate. If you are unable to access the Athena portal, the answering service is open and will deliver messages to your provider. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we carry out our downtime processes.
Protecting your safety and trust remains our top priority. We will continue to provide updates as we learn more.
Heywood Hospital post on Facebook
Category: Health DataU.S.

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