Moving workplaces online exposes systems and patients to increased risk.
COVID has irrevocably changed the paradigm of global healthcare delivery. COVID forced us to quickly provide new forms of remote delivery of healthcare services to our patients via telehealth, telemedicine and other remotely delivered services. It forced non-clinical healthcare staff out of dangerous hospitals to their homes where they could work remotely. But all these changes greatly altered the risk posture of healthcare providers, and expanded the threat surface for attacks.
So the question is, what do we need to consider to make sure that these changes have not exposed our HIT / HIoT systems, and therefore our patients, to elevated risks and safety concerns?
Cybersecurity has been a secondary consideration for hospital CEOs and their boards for decades, permeated only by minor inconvenient changes to regulations like HIPAA, Joint Commission and HITECH. The reality is that healthcare is now the target of attack by cyber criminals looking to monetize stolen PHI, PII, and research IP, or to hold providers of health services to ransom. This substantially increases risk of patient morbidity and mortality. Patient safety and cybersecurity are now the same thing, interchangeable terms used to describe risks to providers and consumers of health services.
Listen the the following 38 minute Fireside Chat with Janette Wider, Managing Editor of Healthcare Innovation, and Cylera's Chief Security Strategist, Richard Staynings, as they explore the new reality of securing healthcare in a post-pandemic world.
