A top administrator is out as HSHS continues to deal with fallout from cyberattack

Steven Spearie, Springfield State Journal- Register
Updated ·2 min read
Kimberly Hodgkinson
Kimberly Hodgkinson

As Hospital Sisters Health System continues to grapple with the fallout from a cybersecurity attack, a top administrator is out.

Kimberly Hodgkinson, senior vice president and chief financial officer since July 2022, left the Springfield-based healthcare company effective Thursday.

Kelly Barbeau, Illinois Division director of marketing/communications for HSHS, would not say Friday if Hodgkinson was dismissed, resigned, or whether her departure was related to the system-wide outage.

Here's the latest on what we know about the cybersecurity attack on HSHS systems

"Our policy is to not publicly discuss personnel matters," Barbeau said in a text message to The State Journal-Register.

Hodgkinson previously was the chief financial officer for the Columbus, Ohio-based Mount Carmel Health System and has 30 years of experience in healthcare finance.

HSHS president and chief executive officer Damond W. Boatwright confirmed Sept. 1 that the system, which includes 15 hospitals and a number of medical clinics in Illinois and Wisconsin, was the target of "a cybersecurity incident."

HSHS publicly acknowledged the outage in a social media post on Aug. 27.

Among the hospitals the not-for-profit Catholic organization operates is HSHS St. John's Hospital in Springfield and HSHS St. Francis Hospital in Litchfield.

Boatwright has said that federal authorities were involved in the investigation. According to a post, the FBI is the lead agency for investigating cybersecurity attacks.

Earlier this week, the health system gained access to the internet and phones, though some phone service was intermittent.

Most HSHS sites in Illinois and Wisconsin remain open, though there are some individual closures in Southern Illinois due to the outage. HSHS St. John's Hospital and HSHS St. Francis Hospital have not reported any closures. None of the HSHS clinics in Springfield have closed.

Workers are still trying to restore the clinical, administrative, and communications systems that were impacted by the attack, including MyChart communication, which helps patients schedule, manage, and check in for appointments; message care teams; pay bills; get test results and after-visit instructions and request prescription refills.

HSHS said it is working "diligently" and "making steady progress" to bring all of its systems back online, though it hasn't confirmed a timeframe.

The system also hasn't indicated whether patient medical records have been compromised by the attack.

Contact Steven Spearie: (217) 622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Kimberly Hodgkinson, the chief financial officer at HSHS, is out