The University of Mississippi Medical Center said in a Facebook post that emails, texts and calls warning of clinic closures or asking patients to send communications are legitimate and being sent by an off-site vendor after its electronic medical record system, Epic, went down.
The post said examples of the messages were shown and added that “it is safe but not necessary to click the links.” The medical center apologized for the confusion those messages caused, saying it activated the vendor to maintain communications while Epic was unavailable.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center is the state’s largest academic medical center and provides a range of inpatient, outpatient and specialty services. Electronic health record outages can interrupt routine operations and prompt hospitals to use backup systems or third-party services to notify patients and staff.
Officials did not provide additional details in the post. Patients are generally advised to verify unexpected messages through known official channels such as a provider’s phone number or website and to exercise caution before clicking links. We will provide more information as it becomes available.
