Recent cyber attacks on healthcare organizations highlight the critical importance of safeguarding patient care and safety against technological vulnerabilities.
In this episode, Greg Garcia, Executive Director of the Health Sector Coordinating Council, announces the launch of the Health Industry Cybersecurity Strategic Plan, highlighting the urgent need for cybersecurity measures in healthcare. The strategic plan outlines seven industry trends, ten major goals, and twelve action items to achieve cybersecurity resilience by 2029. Greg discusses emerging technological trends like wearable devices and artificial intelligence, which pose new cybersecurity challenges, and encourages listeners to read the plan and identify actions relevant to their organizations as well as possible individual contributions in implementing cybersecurity measures.
Tune in and learn how you can contribute to safeguarding healthcare data and patient safety before it’s too late!
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[00:00:00] Hey everybody, Sal Marquez here at VIVE 2023.
[00:00:07] I'm excited to be here with Greg Garcia, Executive Director of the Health Sector Coordinating
[00:00:12] Council.
[00:00:13] Great.
[00:00:14] Thanks for joining me.
[00:00:15] Glad to be right here, Sal.
[00:00:17] So we're here because Greg has a big announcement.
[00:00:21] They are announcing the Health industry's cybersecurity strategic plan.
[00:00:26] So, Greg, do you want to tell us about that and why that matters to our listeners and viewers?
[00:00:30] It's a huge deal. The Health Sector Coordinating Council is a group both down more than 425 health
[00:00:37] care organizations across the health care spectrum working together to identify and mitigate cyber
[00:00:45] security threats to the sector. And we need to love it no
[00:00:48] further than last week's cyber attack on change healthcare,
[00:00:52] which has had a devastating impact on healthcare reimbursements on
[00:00:57] prior authorizations on prescription delivery. And this
[00:01:04] has a direct impact
[00:01:06] on patient care and patient safety.
[00:01:08] So, and this is not the first
[00:01:09] and it's not gonna be the last,
[00:01:11] but what we do know is that the healthcare industry
[00:01:14] is gonna be changing a lot over the next five years.
[00:01:16] So will the cybersecurity challenges
[00:01:19] that come out of those healthcare industry trends
[00:01:22] and we just need to be here
[00:01:27] for all the ways in which we attack service, if we will, from hostile at call, wearable and implantable
[00:01:36] device, blockchain and quantum computing and artificial intelligence and all of these really
[00:01:43] cool technological innovations
[00:01:46] that are going to advance healthcare, but they're also going to increase vulnerabilities
[00:01:51] and threats to the healthcare system.
[00:01:54] So we're looking ahead and saying, what do we need to do as an industry to better prepare
[00:02:00] ourselves against those cyber threats and to be more resilient when incidents do occur.
[00:02:07] In 2017, an HHS task force diagnosed healthcare cybersecurity to be in critical condition.
[00:02:15] We need to work together to get ourselves stable conviction by 2029.
[00:02:22] That's what the Health Industry Cyber Strategic Plan plans about. That's fantastic, Greg.
[00:02:26] Thank you so much for sharing the plan,
[00:02:28] the vision for it.
[00:02:30] If the viewers and listeners today are wondering,
[00:02:34] how can I do something with this?
[00:02:36] What action can I take?
[00:02:37] What would you recommend them to do?
[00:02:39] And where can they go?
[00:02:40] Further question.
[00:02:41] First, the first place to go is healthsectorcouncil.org.
[00:02:45] Healthsectorcouncil.org.
[00:02:49] There you will find the strategic plan.
[00:02:52] And the strategic plan is very elegant.
[00:02:55] It starts with here are the seven trends, industry trends that I told you about.
[00:02:59] Here are the 10 major end-state goals that we need to achieve. And here are the 12
[00:03:09] implements and objectives, the actions that need to take place to achieve those
[00:03:13] goals. Things like our incident response and information sharing is reflexive,
[00:03:20] always on protects the sector against major disruptions.
[00:03:27] Or goal number six, I believe says,
[00:03:31] technology used by the healthcare sector
[00:03:34] is secure by design and secure by default.
[00:03:37] And these medical devices, operational technology.
[00:03:41] So, our listeners and viewers can go to the strategic
[00:03:47] plan and read through those goals and say, which one of these applies to my organization?
[00:03:53] What can I do in my organization either to implement that goal or to promote it, to advocate
[00:04:01] as thought leaders, as market influencers, as a Malice Caronwist.
[00:04:07] Meaning a very clear pathway to implement some of these ideas. And Greg, I just want to say
[00:04:14] thank you for sharing that with us. And we're very excited for the work that you continue to do
[00:04:19] for our community. Thank you very much. The work is in a way just beginning. We got five years
[00:04:24] to get the stable condition and Ryan will be a success.
[00:04:27] Yeah, five years, folks. So let's get to work.
[00:04:30] Greg, thank you very much.
[00:04:31] My pleasure. Thank you, Sal.