Picture this. You’re an administrator in charge of providing basic amenities and day-to-day needs across 1,000 beds in an urban multispecialty hospital. One fine morning, you notice that all the patients’ bedside monitoring systems (the computer-like devices that display patient vitals like heartbeat and blood pressure) have stopped functioning, leaving doctors and nurses in the dark.
The healthcare industry faces a plethora of serious cybersecurity risks. Indeed, 2021 saw a record number of major health data breaches in the U.S. — the breach notification portal of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists at least 713 incidents affecting 45.7 million individuals.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires healthcare entities to implement policies and procedures to safeguard the privacy and security of the protected health information (PHI) of patients. One core requirement is to perform risk assessments. This article explains what a risk assessment is according to HIPAA and offers guidance about the steps involved.
The volume, variety, and velocity of data being collected in clinical trials is constantly increasing. It regularly surpasses what any one person or even a team of people can process, organize and monitor. Companies can no longer throw people at the problem, which is why many have turned to automation and AI to fill the gap.
In this second of a five-part series of posts on why strong vulnerability management is so vital for cybersecurity programs, we look at the need for effective vulnerability management in the healthcare sector. Like financial services, healthcare is a highly-regulated industry and it’s also among the most common targets of cybercriminals.
In October 2021, the IT systems of the Israeli healthcare system suffered a ransomware attack from which it took weeks to recover. Although the motive for the cyberattack on this occasion was not geopolitical but financial, government sources said they feared that far more dangerous incidents against this sector could be carried out by groups linked to foreign powers such as Iran.
This blog was written by an independent guest blogger. Technology in healthcare has the potential to make all the difference in terms of safety outcomes. Right now, modern tech is pushing the envelope of what is possible in the doctor’s office and the patient’s home, as telehealth and artificial intelligence transform the landscape of medical care. But technology isn’t always safe.
Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. In this week’s edition, let’s explore the role of HIPAA compliance in the cybersecurity era.
