CLEVELAND — To help the healthcare industry better manage mounting cybersecurity threats, the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society introduced its Cybersecurity Hub on October 25.
The hub’s debut coincided with the Cleveland Clinic’s annual Medical Innovation Summit at the Global Center for Health Innovation in the heart of downtown Cleveland. Indeed, HIMSS is framing the cybersecurity challenge as ripe for innovation.
The hub is an interactive display of three standalone screens that present viewers with security-related scenarios. The exhibit drills down into a wide variety of threats, such as phishing, malware and ransomware and offers viewers countermeasures to better understand the threats and ways to protect their systems.
HIMSS North America Executive Vice President Carla Smith, who led the unveiling, called cybersecurity threats a clear and present danger to patients, hospitals and to the nation.
“A strong cybersecurity framework is critical to our nation’s health infrastructure,” she added. “We must protect patients’ safety and providers’ ability to deliver high-quality care.”
The concept of the Cybersecurity Hub was born in a HIMSS leadership and strategic meeting, said Crystal Anderson, senior director of interoperability initiatives at HIMSS.
As hospitals and health systems become more digital, more innovative, “our members have looked to us as to how to make this transformation,” HIMSS senior director of health information systems Rod Piechowski added.
What’s more, featuring the Cybersecurity Hub at the Innovation Center enables the meshing of security and innovation.
But security is not the responsibility of the IT department alone. There has to be an awareness of the dangers on the part of everyone who works in a healthcare organization.
“The main objective,” Piechowski said, “is to get people to see themselves as part of the solution.”
Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com
