The Next Phase of Digital Transformation in Healthcare
Our industry is entering the “next phase of digital transformation.”
As we’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, providers and others working in healthcare are preparing to increase their IT and cybersecurity budgets in the coming years. In a recent study, three areas stood out as key focuses for organizations in 2023.
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Application, Network, Identity-Related Security Investments
Cybersecurity has grown increasingly important, with 39 million individuals already affected by healthcare data breaches this year alone. In addition to this, the threat of sophisticated hacker groups has become increasingly apparent.
Vulnerability management tools such as firewalls, network traffic analysis, and secure remote access technology are being implemented, and email security tools are being set up and strengthened to keep out waves of new phishing emails.
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Cloud Security
Cloud technologies have become essential to providers as a means to make operations more efficient and effective. In addition to an increased spend on cloud use, the study found that cloud security protections are getting more attention. It is critical to protect and secure all sensitive information in cloud storage for privacy and compliance.
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Organization Culture
You can have the most sophisticated security tools, but the humans working for your organization will remain either your biggest security threat, or if properly trained, will be your best defense against attackers.
At Medcurity, we talk about “creating a culture of compliance.” This includes training your staff on how to properly handle sensitive information, and how to recognize when a malicious actor is attempting to gain unauthorized access to data. Nearly 75% of survey respondents “reported focusing on expanding security training efforts,” and nearly a third shared their plans to increase budgets for training their employees.
Overall, IT decision makers in our industry are moving in the direction of digital transformation, incorporating new technologies to both improve operations and increase security protections. Organizations are investing in application, network, and identity-related security measures to combat the growing threat of cyberattacks; improving cloud security as providers rely on cloud technologies for efficient operations; and creating a culture of compliance and security awareness with a growing emphasis on security training efforts.
Medcurity provides complete HIPAA compliance training for compliance officers and general employees. All training courses can be viewed and managed from the Medcurity training platform. If you’re looking to meet HIPAA training requirements and better equip your staff to protect the security of patient information, you can learn more about the Medcurity training modules here.
If you have questions about where healthcare security and compliance is headed, reach out to your team at Medcurity. Thank you for being part of our community!