HBO Max’s highly popular television series “Pit” is Accept the compliment For a realistic portrayal of the trials and tribulations of healthcare in an urban emergency room.
Now in its second season, which premiered on January 8, 2026, the show follows Dr. Michael “Robbie” Robinavich (played by Noah Wyle) and his colleagues through a single 15-hour clinical shift, divided into one-hour episodes. The team treats patients against a backdrop of all-too-common American social plagues, from substance use disorders to medical bankruptcy and mass shootings.
Spoiler alert: About halfway through the season, Dr. Robbie and the staff at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center contend with the chaos resulting from a less commonly depicted disaster – a Cyber attacks on hospitals. Hospital networks and computers were incapacitated, leading to scenes of millennial residents struggling with fax machines, lab orders disappearing into a shuffle of paperwork, and constant communication breakdowns that resulted in a missed life-threatening diagnosis.
All of this may prompt viewers to wonder: Does this happen in real life?
As physicians Study cyber attacks and theirs Impact on patient careWe’ve seen many of the same events depicted in “The Pit” play out in the real world
These attacks have serious clinical consequences. In an unfortunate case of life imitating art, the show’s cyber attack story arc began on the same day The University of Mississippi Medical Center suffered a similar fateThat led to the sudden closure of more than 30 affiliated clinics across the state and disrupted Mississippi’s only Level I trauma center.
Modern healthcare Critically dependent on digital technologySuch as electronic health records, laboratory machines and radiology platforms, which shut down when the hospital network is taken offline. Losing access to these tools for long periods of time puts patients’ lives at serious risk.
What is at stake?
One of the worst real-life cyber attacks on hospitals involved Ransomware, a class of malicious software which encrypts data and locks down computers and networks, demanding significant sums of cash for promised relief. Unfortunately, these incidents are not rare. Comparitech, a cyber security research firm, 445 ransomware attacks were recorded in hospitals and clinics in 2025 – a new peak after several years of annual growth.
This type of attack is particularly dangerous Time-sensitive emergency patients Such as stroke, heart attack or SepsisBut they greatly affect hospital outcomes. For example, a 2026 analysis of Medicare data found that hospitalizations Patients had a 38% higher risk of death During a ransomware attack.
Furthermore, the health impacts of ransomware are not limited to hospitals under attack. “The Pit” demonstrates this phenomenon well in earlier episodes. When Westbridge, another hospital in the community, was first hit, a wave of patients arriving by ambulance overwhelmed Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s already packed emergency room, delaying care and overwhelming already overwhelmed physicians. Our team saw that a hospital was hacked by a cyber attack Chances of Surviving Cardiac Arrest About 90% of the surrounding hospitals were not damaged by brain damage, not just the ones that were attacked.
And even when a hospital’s computer systems are restored and normal care resumes, a cyber attack can cause huge financial losses. Class action lawsuits, fragmented billing, and steep regulatory fines often result in tens of millions of dollars in damages due to patient privacy violations and other issues.
The worst cases have been hospitals or clinics in rural areas forced to close their doorsleaving their communities with one less place to seek care and exacerbating the existing healthcare desert.
Protecting cyber infrastructure
We have no doubt that Dr. Ravi will eventually rally his team to save the day from a malicious cyber attack on “The Pit.” But what is the prognosis for the rest of us in the real world?
The good news is that several efforts are underway to improve the cybersecurity of the US health care system.
The federal government has given special recognition Risk in rural and critical access hospitals and marked growth Investing in cyber security technology As goal one Rural Health Transformation ProgrammeA US$50 billion package distributed to all 50 states.
Several states including New York And ConnecticutIt took further steps, including new bills in 2025 and 2026 requiring hospitals to develop specific cybersecurity plans to protect patients. And now the Food and Drug Administration Assesses the cybersecurity of new medical devices prior to their arrival on the market, and may withdraw those with significant weaknesses.
Cybersecurity is one of the few bipartisan issues on Capitol Hill. A Healthcare Cyber Security Bill Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La. and Mark Warner, D-Va. Co-sponsored by, to be introduced in December 2025, Hospitals must adopt safety practicesAllocating additional grants to hospitals and clinics, including multifactor authentication and data encryption, and strengthening the pipeline for cybersecurity professionals working in the healthcare sector, among other provisions.
However, this problem is not going away. Artificial intelligence And Expanding remote and virtual care This means malicious hackers have sophisticated new tools and increased opportunities to target hospitals Researchers like us need to find new ways to prevent cyberattacks when possible and protect patients when they inevitably explode.
Jeffrey TullyAssociate Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology, University of California, San Diego And Christian DemeffAssociate Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of California, San Diego
Reprinted from this article the conversation Under Creative Commons license. read on Main article.
