Healthcare Orgs May Be Ramping Up Cybersecurity Efforts

As I’ve noted (too) many times in the past, healthcare organizations don’t have a great track record when it comes to cybersecurity. Compared to other industries, healthcare organizations spend relatively little on IT security overall, and despite harangues from people like myself, this has remained the case for many years.

However, a small new survey by HIMSS suggests that the tide may be turning. It’s not incredibly surprising to hear, as health it leaders have been facing increasingly frequent cybersecurity attacks. A case in point: In a recent study by Netwrix Corp., more than half of healthcare organizations reported struggling with malware, and that’s just one of many ongoing cyber security threats.

The HIMSS cybersecurity survey, which tallies responses from 126 IT leaders, concluded that security professionals are focusing on medical device security, and that patient safety, data breaches and malware were their top three concerns.

In the survey, HIMSS found that 71% of respondents were allocating some of their budgets toward cybersecurity and that 80% said that their organization employed dedicated cybersecurity staff.

Meanwhile, 78% of respondents were able to identify a cybersecurity staffing ratio (i.e. the number of cybersecurity specialists versus other employees), and 53% said the ratio was 1:500 which, according to HIMSS is considered the right ratio for information-centric, risk-averse businesses with considerable Internet exposure.

Also of note, it seems that budgets for cybersecurity are getting more substantial. Of the 71% of respondents whose organizations are budgeting for cybersecurity efforts, 60% allocated 3% or more of their overall budget to the problem. And that’s not all. Eleven percent of respondents said that they were allocating more than 10% of the budget to cybersecurity, which is fairly impressive.

Other stats from the survey included that 60% of respondents said their organizations employed a senior information security leader such as a Chief Information Security Officer.  In its press release covering the survey, it noted that CISOs and other top security leaders are adopting cybersecurity programs that cut across several areas, including procurement and education/training. The security leaders are also adopting the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

According to HIMSS, 85% of respondents said they conduct a risk assessment at least once a year, and that 75% of them regularly conduct penetration testing. Meanwhile, 75% said they had some type of insider threat management program in place within their healthcare organization.

One final note: In the report, HIMSS noted that acute care providers had more specific concerns was cybersecurity than non-acute care providers. Over the next few years, as individual practices merge with larger ones, and everyone gets swept up into ACOs, I wonder if that distinction will even matter anymore.

My take is that when smaller organizations work with big ones, everyone’s tech is set up reach the level better-capitalized players have achieved, and that will standardize everyone’s concerns. What do you think?

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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