Healthcare compliance and cybersecurity: Examining the needs

Hospitals are alive with activity and awash with information. Just a single healthcare complex can contain hundreds of staff members who are using thousands of devices to tap into a vast ecosystem of healthcare data. As such, hospitals and just about any other healthcare setting are ticking time bombs in terms of cybersecurity and are constantly at risk for major violations.

While organizations in every industry face similar scrutiny and risk for violation, health care is unique in two ways. First, medical information is extremely sensitive, as the very nature of the data could potentially contribute to a life-or-death scenario for an individual if that data is compromised. Secondly, health care relies on a huge number of network-connected devices that haven’t necessarily been updated at the same pace with technology advancements and, therefore, may lack appropriate cyber-defense measures or even capabilities. These unique hurdles place the healthcare industry at a much higher risk for noncompliance, an important distinction because violations with healthcare data often come with elevated consequences for the healthcare provider.

This situation will not get any better as health care becomes even more reliant on technology. Now that patients are using at-home devices to transmit health information, the sheer number of devices that hackers could target is growing significantly.