It's essential to implement technologies and develop policies to reduce cybersecurity risks.
In this episode at HIMSS 2024, Erik Littlejohn, president and CEO of CloudWave, highlights the challenges hospitals face in attracting and retaining talent and emphasizes the need for trusted partners like CloudWave. The company provides IT solutions to hospitals, specializing in managed IT, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity, offering services ranging from advisory to managed cybersecurity solutions. Throughout this interview, Erik stresses the importance of starting with an honest assessment of a hospital's cybersecurity posture and developing a roadmap for mitigation. He also advises hospitals not to be paralyzed by fear but to take small, manageable steps toward improving their cybersecurity.
Tune in and learn how CloudWave helps hospitals navigate the complex landscape of cybersecurity threats, providing tailored solutions and guidance to mitigate risks effectively!
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[00:00:02] Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket.
[00:00:05] We are here at HIMSS 2024, and I have the privilege of having Eric Littlejohn on the podcast.
[00:00:11] He is the president and chief executive officer at CloudWave.
[00:00:16] Eric, thanks so much for joining me today.
[00:00:17] Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
[00:00:19] Absolutely. Hey, look, to kick things off, tell us about you.
[00:00:22] Tell us about your company and the main stakeholder group that you help in the industry.
[00:00:27] Right. So CloudWave is a IT solutions provider for hospitals throughout the U.S.
[00:00:34] and other geographies, primarily providing managed IT solutions, hosting disaster recovery backup, and also cybersecurity.
[00:00:43] I would say our sweet spot is community hospitals.
[00:00:46] 200 beds or less, though.
[00:00:48] We also work with critical access hospitals and larger facilities.
[00:00:52] Fantastic. It's necessary work.
[00:00:56] What's one of the things that you often see?
[00:00:58] Like are hospitals doing this work internally or is this something that really requires a hands on partner approach?
[00:01:04] Yeah, I think a challenge a lot of hospitals have today is attracting and retaining talent.
[00:01:09] And so they really want a trusted partner like a CloudWave or others that have a focus in health care
[00:01:15] and also the scale and experience to help them, especially as they look at migrating workloads into the cloud.
[00:01:24] They look at all the cybersecurity threat landscape.
[00:01:27] It's just a lot for a hospital to manage.
[00:01:29] And so I think that's where our value is enhanced with customers.
[00:01:32] That's great. Eric, you came to HIMSS.
[00:01:35] Help us understand why you came to HIMSS this year and any key insight that has really rose into the top for you and your team.
[00:01:42] Yeah, so I think HIMSS has always been an important show for us.
[00:01:44] It's an opportunity to see a lot of customers in a short amount of time.
[00:01:48] So it's a really efficient way for us to get around and also just to see and stay abreast of the latest trends and what people are talking about.
[00:01:56] And as you can probably imagine, this year we're hearing a lot about cybersecurity.
[00:02:01] It seems like every week there's a new incident.
[00:02:04] Change health care over the last couple of weeks been on everybody's mind.
[00:02:08] Before that, it was Lurie Children's, it's just in Chicago.
[00:02:12] So never ending.
[00:02:14] And I think that's what we hear a lot of customers asking us about is how can we help them?
[00:02:18] Wow. And if you mentioned it to us, but just make sure everybody listening and watching this understands, like what are the main buckets that you guys can really help health systems with?
[00:02:28] Yeah, so the our cybersecurity solutions range from advisory services and consulting,
[00:02:35] I think your typical sort of pin testing assessments, tabletop exercises.
[00:02:39] But ultimately we can provide managed cybersecurity services.
[00:02:43] So, again, tough area for a smaller hospital to have a 24 by seven security operations center.
[00:02:49] And so there's a real propensity to want to look at managed services.
[00:02:53] And so we'll typically try to start a customer engagement with advisory and assessment work to really give them an understanding of what their baseline is today.
[00:03:03] That's huge. Thank you for that.
[00:03:04] And there's been a lot of hospitals, health systems and organizations impacted by this.
[00:03:10] So the work that you guys do is really important.
[00:03:12] There's a lot out there for people to tackle.
[00:03:15] What would you say is that key area that deserves like the most attention and an easy way to start?
[00:03:22] I get asked that question a lot, and I think it can be very overwhelming for a hospital system to think about everything that could go wrong.
[00:03:29] And so I think you really just have to start with an honest assessment in order to get a roadmap of what I need to do over a period of time.
[00:03:36] And so that's the most important thing we do with our customers is an ongoing assessment.
[00:03:40] And so we start there and then every quarter we work with those customers to determine what next steps I can take, whether it's implementing technologies, developing policies, procedures so that you're always mitigating your risk.
[00:03:53] And it feels so daunting for customers to try to take all that on at once.
[00:03:58] And our point is, you don't have to.
[00:04:00] You just have to have a plan and execute that with us and we can get you there over a period of time.
[00:04:05] Amazing. Thanks for making it bite sized for us.
[00:04:08] It's always important to have that path forward.
[00:04:10] And if you wanted to leave our listeners and viewers with a call to action, what would you leave them with?
[00:04:15] And what's the best place for them to get in touch with you?
[00:04:18] So I would say the call to actions echoes what I just went through is don't let the fear and paralysis of all the risks and threats there stop you from taking that first step, which is just to understand what your baseline is today
[00:04:30] and what actions you can start taking in small chunks and that you're not trying to solve everything in one day or one quarter, even one year, but that we can help you with that journey as well.
[00:04:42] And if you want to hear more from us or get in contact, I encourage you to go to our website, go cloudwave.com and we'd be happy to help in any way.
[00:04:50] Amazing.
[00:04:51] Eric, thank you so much.
[00:04:52] Really appreciate you being here.
[00:04:53] And folks, check out the show notes.
[00:04:55] If you're watching this there below.
[00:04:57] If you're listening to this, pause it.
[00:04:59] Take a look at those show notes because we'll have ways to get in touch with Eric and his team.
[00:05:04] Eric, thanks so much for being with us.
[00:05:05] Really appreciate it.
[00:05:06] Thank you.