As the scale and frequency of cyberattacks continues to increase in healthcare, hospitals and health systems are tinkering their budgets and investing in IT areas to ward off threats.
Three hospital chief information security officers and CIOs shared with Becker's how they have adjusted their IT budgets for cybersecurity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and in what areas they are investing the most.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and style.
Howard Haile. Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer at SCL Health (Broomfield, Colo.): We have been focused for the past several years on transitioning security to meet the needs of an increasingly remote workforce. Our focus will remain on increasing protection for our remote workforce through threat protection of cloud, mobile and identity solutions. We are increasingly expanding expertise through managed services, as well as investing in security AI technologies that can augment and reduce manual workload.
Jeri Koester. CIO at Marshfield Clinic (Medford, Wis.): Given the current increase in hospital cyberattacks during and post-pandemic, we have focused budgetary efforts in a few main areas. We have focused on medical device security management to actively eliminate vulnerabilities to our medical devices. We have invested in multifactor authentication, and we are focused on endpoint, detection and response solutions that capitalize automation and orchestration.
Dennis Lee. CIO at Mountain Health Network (Huntington, W.Va.): We continue to increase our security spend for both products and resources. Our board and executives continue to have their awareness elevated and seek to reduce our risk. We are also seeing our cyber liability insurance carrier increase its expectations on our overall security program and products. We have used this with our ongoing information security audits to prioritize our work efforts and spending.