With hospitals sitting on so much data in our tech-heavy age, health systems have to be vigilant about safeguarding their patients' protected health information.
Cybersecurity was the No. 2 concern — after staffing — of 12 hospital IT and digital executives recently surveyed by Becker's.
Here are some of their responses, lightly edited for clarity:
"Our priority is ensuring we have a strong defense against the growing threats that are targeting healthcare organizations," said Kate Pierce, CIO and chief information security officer of North Country Hospital in Newport City, Vt. "Cyber defense is a moving target, and one that requires significant time, energy and resources."
Ed Kopetsky, CIO of Stanford Children's Health in Palo Alto, Calif., said operating a strong cybersecurity program and finding the resources for it take up a lot of hospital IT executives' time nowadays.
"There's been a significant increase in phishing emails," said Pavan Attur, CIO of Hudson Regional Hospital in Secaucus, N.J. "Even though our security team continuously monitors and updates email security filters, we continue to see more phishing emails."