Willapa Medical Clinic in South Bend, Wash., was looking for a solution to speed up registration and smooth out the check-in process at the office, helping to limit COVID-19 exposure as much as possible. Before implementing the touchless solution, the Clinic's staff was reaching through the registration window to take everyone's temperature with a tympanic thermometer.
Healthcare providers remain firmly focused on dealing with the global pandemic, juggling the often-conflicting demands of providing care while keeping patients and staff safe. The financial impact of the pandemic has left many providers on the brink of bankruptcy amid falling patient visits deferred elective surgeries, and insufficient government aid to “fill the gap.”
With the healthcare industry expected to spend $125 billion on cybersecurity from 2020 to 2025, dollars must be spent for maximum efficiency. The question is, how to allocate those funds most effectively at a time when cybercriminals have placed a huge target on hospitals, research labs, pharmaceuticals and insurance carriers.
Organizations need to take a layered approach to security to protect their organizations and sensitive patient data. The smartest approach is to start at the perimeter and work back toward existing enterprise protections – here’s how to do that.
A company that offers psychotherapy to thousands of patients across Finland says it’s been the victim of a data breach, with the personal information of customers held for ransom. Vastaamo, which sees patients in 20 cities including Helsinki, Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Pori, Turku and Tampere, says “an unknown hostile party” got in touch with them saying they had obtained customer details.
Amidst this flurry of high-profile attacks comes National Cyber Security Awareness Month; a poignant reminder that, for hospitals and healthcare providers, cyberattack prevention and business continuity is truly a matter of life and death. Over the course of the pandemic, we have seen ransomware and phishing attacks against healthcare institutions — viewed by cybercriminals as vulnerable and profitable targets — dramatically skyrocket. But where, in an ever-evolving threat landscape, should healthcare organizations focus their attention?
According to Intertrust's 2020 Security Report on Global mHealth Apps, 71% of healthcare and medical apps have at least one serious vulnerability that could lead to a breach of medical data. The report investigated 100 publicly available global mobile healthcare apps across a range of categories—including telehealth, medical device, health commerce, and COVID-tracking—to uncover the most critical mHealth app threats.
Universal Health Services (UHS), one of the largest healthcare services provider, has reportedly shut down systems at healthcare facilities around the U.S. after a cyberattack hit its networks.
The Travelers Companies, Inc. announced the results of the 2020 Travelers Risk Index, which found that fewer companies than last year have taken steps to mitigate cyber risks, even though the level of concern about these threats has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In fact, HIPAA penalties do distinguish degrees of “not knowing,” yet that doesn’t mean - like the traffic violation above - that a hefty fine still won’t land in your lap. Can your company deal with even a $50,000 (per violation) hit to the pocket book? Here’s the breakdown of potential penalties per OCR (Office of Civil Rights) discretion, as noted in the HIPAA Journal.
Following a competitive review process, CISA awarded $2,000,000 to the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) for a two-year period of performance beginning on September 30, 2020. UMMC will use REMCDP funds to build on the successes of its previous REMCDP awards.
