Implementing a cybersecurity plan in healthcare

Implementing a cybersecurity plan in healthcare
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
Implementing a cybersecurity plan in healthcare
Healthcare is among the most vulnerable industries to cyberattacks and data breaches. The rate of breaches has been on the rise and cuts across various segments in the industry including healthcare, retail, insurance, technology, and financial services. There are several types of cyber breaches or threats including hacktivism, terrorism, espionage, warfare, crime, and insider (Mattioli et al. 2018). Cyber-attacks and breaches are often motivated by perceived personal, financial, or political-ideological gains to an individual, a group, or even a state. In the healthcare industry, protected health information has been monetized and exploited for several reasons. The information gained via cyber breach can be used for malicious activities including identity theft, medical device fraud, healthcare/Medicaid fraud, tax fraud, ransom bargaining, and other exploitations (Al-Muhtadi et al., 2019). Cyberattacks pose a great threat in the healthcare industry in the form of patients' data loss, unauthorized changes in databases, and systems breakdown. It is estimated that almost a quarter of organizations have lost business opportunities, customers, and revenues due to cyber-related crimes in the past decade. In healthcare, every minute counts, and a security breach can affect patient care. It is a primary responsibility of the management to prevent the industry from cyber breaches and to protect its patients from physical, financial, and mental damages caused by cyber-attacks.
Important Resources
Increasing cyber-attacks and breaches are rendering healthcare organizations unable to access patient data, which affects the overall patient care. Therefore, it is the right time for healthcare organizations to take steps to protect their data and applications. Security planning helps healthcare entities in preventing and mitigating the effects of security incidents by integrating approaches that have proven to be successful in the protection of patients' and healthcare information. Cybersecurity must integrate all security systems and processes into healthcare's existing planning processes and daily health care routines. Cybersecurity is an on-going effort that involves people and processes along with technology. In healthcare, people include the management, staff, retailers, suppliers, and contractors. All parties involved must be aware of the need for security and educated on the security policies and procedures in place in a given healthcare institution (Conaty-Buck, 2017). For the organization to carry out a proper assessment and implementation of the cybersecurity plan, the management must identify the resources needed. The resources include both physical and technical facilities, as well as the personnel responsible for implementing the cybersecurity guidelines. Senior management is expected to lead by example to demonstrate the importance of cybersecurity to the healthcare institution. The technical personnel is expected to inform and explain to the senior management about the various impacts of a breach on the safety of patients' life and equipment, customer service and satisfaction, and fina...