A data breach that affected a vendor previously used by Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare may have caused the release of patients’ sensitive personal information, the hospital said in a June 13 letter.
TMH said the incident affected Cerner, an electronic health record company, that TMH “no longer uses.” That company confirmed a “cybersecurity event involving unauthorized access” to data as early as January 22, 2025.
“An unknown party reached out to TMH claiming to have some patient information in their possession, which we verified on March 13, 2025,” the letter said.
“We immediately began an investigation with the assistance of cybersecurity specialists and notified law enforcement. We quickly determined that the information was related to data migration services performed by Cerner and reached out to the vendor. “
The “personal information … may have included your name, Social Security number, and information (in) patient medical records, such as … diagnoses, medicines, test results, images, care and treatment.”
“We have indications that TMH is one of many health care organizations nationwide impacted by this incident,” TMH spokesperson Stephanie M. Derzypolski told the Tallahassee Democrat. “TMH’s current electronic health record system was not impacted by this issue, and there has been no disruption to our operations or our ability to care for patients.”
TMH has been plagued by other information technology issues
Cerner told TMH that law enforcement asked the company to delay divulging the breach because that “could have impeded the investigation.”
TMH, like many large hospitals in the U.S., has had its share of cybersecurity and other computer issues in recent years.
In early 2023, TMH was victim to an incident experts surmised was a ransomware attack, though the hospital didn’t confirm or deny that at the time. Spokespeople later acknowledged its systems were accessed by a hacker, but would not verify if a ransom was involved.
A ransomware attack is a type of cyberattack in which malicious software encrypts data and the perpetrator demands payment, often in cryptocurrency, to restore access.
And in late 2024, TMH had to cancel surgeries and procedures after a hardware “disruption” to the hospital’s computer network and phone systems.
Vendor said it was hit by ‘security event’
In its own notice released June 17, Cerner said “in late February, the company became aware of a security event in which an unauthorized third party gained access to protected health information on legacy Cerner systems (and) the company has taken a number of remediation steps to prevent this kind of event from happening again.”
It said “information that may have been involved was not the same for every impacted individual.”
Both TMH and Cerner said they were offering patients free identity protection services, including credit monitoring for two years.
“We remain committed to upholding high standards of custodianship of TMH information with our third-party vendors,” the TMH letter said.
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Contact Economic Development Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com and follow @TaMarynWaters on X.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: TMH data breach linked to former vendor, hospital tells patients
Reporting by TaMaryn Waters, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
