Barriers to Better Healthcare Cybersecurity

We often say in healthcare that we need to learn from other industries. We try to do that as much as possible on this blog and this is one of those cases. HIPAAEx recently shared this image that illustrates many of the barriers that local governments face to better cybersecurity. Many of them are money issues like paying high prices cybersecurity salaries and hiring and training cybersecurity staff, but the largest barrier is lack of support. See the details below:

Does this sound like some of the same issues that we have when it comes to barriers to effective cybersecurity in healthcare? It does to me.

While healthcare does deal with these same challenges, I have to admit how drastic the change has been when it comes to support for cybersecurity efforts from healthcare leaders. It used to not even be an after thought. That’s still sadly true in many healthcare organizations. However, I’m seeing more and more healthcare organizations that have seen cybersecurity as a strategic priority.

Healthcare organizations know the damage that’s caused when they have a massive breach occur that shouldn’t happen. They’re finally starting to wake up to this fact. Most are taking a two fold approach: how do I prevent a breach from occurring and what’s my process when a breach occurs?

The problem with cybersecurity is that it’s never done. You can’t look at cybersecurity as a project that’s complete and now you can move on to something else. Cybersecurity is always changing and has to become part of the culture of your organization if you want to have any hope of keeping up and avoiding any major cybersecurity disasters.

How does this chart stack up with your experience? What are your barriers to healthcare cybersecurity? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments and with us on social media @HealthcareScene.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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