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Healthcare institutions rely on critical equipment like life support systems, emergency equipment, and diagnostic tools to treat patients. These systems are essential for maintaining patient safety and stability in healthcare.
But when the companies behind the equipment are hit by a cyberattack, how does it affect the industry? This is exactly what recently happened to a major medical technology company.
In this blog post, we will discuss the security incident, the healthcare company, and its impact on healthcare organizations overall. Plus, we’ll show you how Techmedics can help you stay resilient during vendor outages.
In March 2026, Michigan-based medtech firm Stryker experienced a network disruption as a result of a cyberattack.
Stryker specializes in manufacturing joint implants, surgical robots, and other orthopedic devices. It also manufactures medical equipment including hospital beds, wound care systems, and cleaning products.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the attack led to a worldwide system outage after cybercriminals remotely wiped devices running Microsoft Windows, including laptops and mobile devices. During the attack, Stryker also instructed employees to disconnect their systems from all networks and turn off company-issued devices.
In an update posted on its website, Stryker stated that while the attack disrupted its order processing, manufacturing, and shipping, it is working to bring its electronic ordering systems back online.
“We have visibility to the orders entered before the event, and they will be shipped as soon as our system communications are restored,” Stryker said. “Any orders that have come in after the event are being examined.”
Furthermore, Stryker assured customers that its surgical robots, monitors, and defibrillators are fully safe to use and communications with its employees via email and phone remain secure.
The security incident that affected Stryker has a few implications for the healthcare industry, including:
With the attack knocking out Stryker’s ordering platform, hospitals cannot place or track their orders. The company’s manufacturing and shipping operations were interrupted. Even products already on their way to hospitals were stuck in transit because Stryker’s logistics systems were offline.
A five-year-old child, according to a Bloomberg report, was supposed to receive a customized Stryker implant. Unfortunately, the operation was rescheduled to April as the implant was stuck in transit. Similarly, Catholic health system CommonSpirit Health announced that a small number of surgeries have been rescheduled due to the Stryker cyberattack.
While some hospitals resorted to manual workarounds with Stryker sales representatives, these were still slower and less reliable than automated systems.
With the Stryker attack disabling most of the company’s IT systems, healthcare staff abandoned automated ordering systems. Instead, they started relying on manual processes like phone calls, emails, and spreadsheets with Stryker’s sales representatives. As a result, staff spend more time checking for updates on medical equipment rather than focusing on providing patient care.
The lack of reliable system data also makes it difficult for hospitals to forecast supply levels of medical equipment they depend on from Stryker, resulting in redundant communication. This means repeated check-ins with Stryker reps to check orders or multiple updates to clinical teams about supply status.
If a hospital cannot operate properly due to the lack of equipment from its vendor, hospitals lose revenue from patient billing, operating room time, and staff scheduling. They may also incur higher costs and additional workload when rescheduling surgeries.
To make things worse, hospitals may need to purchase equipment from alternative vendors at premium prices to continue operating, which drives up procurement costs.
Delays can also result in indirect costs, such as patient dissatisfaction, compliance and malpractice risks, and insurance claims issues.
Considering how the surgery schedules were disrupted and hospital staff were forced to resort to manual processes, the Stryker cyberattack shows how vulnerable the industry can become after just a single incident.
Some lessons healthcare organizations like can learn from this event include:
Hospitals depend on medtech vendors like Stryker for surgical tools, implants, and other devices. If the vendor’s systems go down or the hospital can’t acquire the necessary tools, patient care is immediately disrupted.
To mitigate this risk, it’s essential to build contingency workflows for supply chain disruptions. This means having agreements with alternative medtech device providers if the primary supplier is down or maintaining a reserve inventory of essential items (e.g., orthopedic implants, surgical instruments) to cover short-term disruptions.
It also helps to thoroughly evaluate vendors. For example, check if they follow strong cybersecurity practices (e.g., enforcing multifactor authentication, implementing endpoint protection) and meet healthcare standards like HIPAA, HITECH, or ISO.
Ultimately, assessing vendors carefully ensures you can choose those with stronger resilience against attacks. It also helps you establish fallback plans when disruptions occur.
Some healthcare businesses may assume that cybersecurity only involves safeguarding electronic health records (EHRs), billing data, and compliance with regulations. However, it also involves ensuring continuous, timely patient care even when IT systems or vendors are unavailable.
Here are some tips to strengthen your cyber resilience:
According to some reports, employees’ personal phones were wiped if they had corporate apps like Teams or Outlook installed and managed via the company’s endpoint management system. For healthcare employees who use personal devices for work matters, this creates a significant liability as a data breach could compromise their personal information as well.
It’s therefore critical to re-evaluate your hospital’s BYOD policies to prevent collateral damage during security incidents. For example, you could create separate work profiles on an employee’s personal phone or choose to manage only specific apps on a device. This way, even if an attacker remotely wipes devices, only corporate data is affected, leaving personal photos and information untouched.
When it comes to healthcare, we know patient care should always come first. So instead of managing your technology on your own, why not partner with a managed IT services provider like Techmedics? We offer the following solutions, helping you prevent and recover from disruptions like the Stryker incident:
Cyber incidents can happen to any organization, but the right IT partner can make all the diference. Techmedics helps healthcare providers build a more resillient IT environment.
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