Digital innovation in healthcare continues to revolutionize patient outcomes and improve accessibility and equity of care. With the help of new digital technologies, patients now have the power to engage in their care from anywhere, leading to a more patient-centric approach. Additionally, healthcare professionals benefit from the efficiency and productivity that digital innovations bring, allowing them to make informed decisions, coordinate care effectively, and ensure continuity across different medical disciplines.
One of the key drivers of this transformation is advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. These tools enable healthcare providers to extract valuable insights from huge amounts of healthcare data. As a result, evidence-based decision-making becomes possible, personalized treatment plans can be created, predictive analytics for population health management are implemented, and contributions to clinical research and innovations increase.
As digital transformation takes center stage in the healthcare industry, IT organizations have a crucial role to play. They are responsible for ensuring the availability of digital systems and innovations that deliver care while maintaining patient privacy and the security of electronic health and personal data.
The expansion of care locations beyond acute care settings to ambulatory, telemedicine, and hospital-at-home settings has further increased the scope of IT organizations’ security responsibilities. While these new care environments optimize patient-centric care, they also introduce new challenges in securing the expanded surface of IT systems.
There are several significant challenges that healthcare IT organizations face when it comes to security. Firstly, continuous cybersecurity threats pose a significant risk. The vast amount of valuable personal and medical data stored in healthcare systems makes them an attractive target for cybercriminals. These criminals aim to profit from data theft, disrupt life-threatening care, and even harass healthcare professionals and patients through comprehensive attack campaigns. Common attack vectors such as phishing enable insider threats, both deliberate and unintentional.
Another challenge is the diversity of connected devices in healthcare organizations. These devices fall into three categories: those managed by IT, those managed by third-party business associates, and unmanageable devices. It is essential for IT organizations to have complete visibility of all connected devices and understand their use. Implementing consistent security controls for this diverse set of devices is crucial to prevent security incidents and protect healthcare environments.
Furthermore, the distributed nature of applications and workforce in healthcare leads to security challenges. Healthcare professionals now have the flexibility to deliver care from anywhere, breaking traditional centralized security control models. Software-as-a-service (SaaS), hosted applications, and public cloud-resident applications add to this challenge by utilizing centralized data center-delivered security stack architectures. To fully leverage digital innovations and enable care delivery from anywhere, reliable connectivity and consistent distributed security controls are necessary.
To address these security challenges and achieve a safe and secure digital healthcare transformation, healthcare organizations need to focus on six key areas. Firstly, implementing a Zero-Trust strategy is crucial to continuously validate trust at every stage of digital interactions. Ensuring the security of all connected devices, enabling care delivery from anywhere, protecting all applications and data, achieving regulatory compliance, and maximizing integrations and automation are also important focus areas.
By prioritizing security in the digital transformation process, healthcare organizations can ensure the safety of patient data and accelerate the pace of digital innovation. This not only supports better patient outcomes but also enhances the experience for both patients and healthcare professionals.
In conclusion, the digital transformation of healthcare brings immense benefits but also introduces new security challenges. Healthcare IT organizations play a vital role in securing the expanded surface of care locations and protecting valuable patient data. By addressing continuous cybersecurity threats, managing the diversity of connected devices, and implementing distributed security controls, healthcare organizations can navigate these challenges successfully. Prioritizing security through a proactive and programmatic approach enables safe and secure digital innovation in healthcare delivery.