A retrospective impact analysis of the WannaCry cyber-attack on the NHS
File(s)s41746-019-0161-6.pdf (560.99 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A systematic analysis of Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) data was done to determine the effects of the 2017 WannaCry attack on the National Health Service (NHS) by identifying the missed appointments, deaths, and fiscal costs attributable to the ransomware attack. The main outcomes measured were: outpatient appointments cancelled, elective and emergency admissions to hospitals, Accident & Emergency (A&E) attendances, and deaths in A&E. Compared with the baseline, there was no significant difference in the total activity across all trusts during the week of the WannaCry attack. Trusts had 1% more emergency admissions and 1% fewer A&E attendances per day during the WannaCry week compared with baseline. Hospitals directly infected with the ransomware, however, had significantly fewer emergency and elective admissions: a decrease of about 6% in total admissions per infected hospital per day was observed, with 4% fewer emergency admissions and 9% fewer elective admissions. No difference in mortality was noted. The total economic value of the lower activity at the infected trusts during this time was £5.9m including £4m in lost inpatient admissions, £0.6m from lost A&E activity, and £1.3m from cancelled outpatient appointments. Among hospitals infected with WannaCry ransomware, there was a significant decrease in the number of attendances and admissions, which corresponded to £5.9m in lost hospital activity. There was no increase in mortality reported, though this is a crude measure of patient harm. Further work is needed to appreciate the impact of a a cyber attack or IT failure on care delivery and patient safety.
Date Issued
2019-10-02
Date Acceptance
2019-08-05
Citation
npj Digital Medicine, 2019, 2
ISSN
2398-6352
Publisher
Nature Research (part of Springer Nature)
Journal / Book Title
npj Digital Medicine
Volume
2
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2019. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the
article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative
Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the
article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory
regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sponsor
National Institute of Health Research
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Health Care Sciences & Services
Health policy
Policy
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 98