Malware attacks are a fact of life for large organizations. When the IT department of one of Acorn’s hospital clients was forced to shut down all computers on the network to tackle a ransomware event, it created a monumental problem for medical staff and administrators needing to communicate with clinical staff during a mission critical period for the organization.
Without the ability to send, receive, or open emails, the hospital reached out to Acorn Support for help in keeping the flow of communications open with providers during a crucial time.
How Acorn solved the problem
The Acorn platform’s solution for hospitals and health systems is built on a cloud-based architecture with a secure database that stores each practitioner’s email, phone, fax, home, and business address information.
Even though the hospital computers were inaccessible, Acorn was accessible from a personal computer. The client was able to access email templates and addresses through Acorn to notify their providers of the malware attack and provide direction to staff on how to proceed with downtime/offline documentation methods until the malware attack was mitigated.
There is a powerful correspondence function within Acorn that clients can use to send emails and faxes directly from the Acorn system. This function automatically populates email content and attachments with practitioner and organizational data into customized templates.
Acorn’s correspondence function is smart. The user doesn’t have to manually retrieve email accounts and enter each email address. Based on the user-specified target group of people, such as physicians and allied health providers, the Acorn system auto-fills their email addresses. Email status is tracked in the platform, and it identifies any delayed or undeliverable emails.
During the malware incident, the hospital used Acorn to generate more than 600 emails in less than two minutes to alert practitioners.
Acorn’s correspondence function is also efficient. The user only needs to create one correspondence and make a few selections. The system populates from an email template, or the user can type in customized email content. Attachments can be uploaded if desired and the system auto-generates and sends the email to all the providers in one click. Emails can also be generated to send to one or more physicians and copied to any other desired recipients.
Acorn benefits and results
During the malware incident, the hospital used Acorn to generate more than 600 emails in less than two minutes to alert practitioners. The Acorn system’s built-in functionality provided an important communications workaround for the hospital client to continue with business as usual during a malware attack.
