Statement by CHIME President and CEO Russell Branzell, FCHIME, CHCIO, on the Ponemon Institute’s Sixth Annual Benchmark Study on Privacy & Security of Healthcare Data:
CHIME members take very seriously their responsibility to protect the privacy and security of patient data and devices networked to their systems. As the Ponemon Institute report details, the cyber threat landscape has never been more dangerous. In fact, this last Sunday — Mother’s Day — the CIO at a 130-bed community hospital reported that they turned away 3,000-plus attempted attacks on their network.
To better safeguard our systems, we must improve information sharing across the industry. CHIME was a leading advocate for including healthcare-specific provisions in the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015. CHIME board members David Finn, health information technology officer at Symantec Corp., and Theresa Meadows, R.N., vice president and CIO at Cook Children’s Health Care System serve on a new federal task force charged with developing plan for improved information sharing across the industry.
Additionally, CHIME and its affiliate, the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Security, recently called for greater collaboration between providers and medical device manufacturers and for the Food & Drug Administration to develop standardized cybersecurity framework for medical devices.
No single sector of the healthcare ecosystem can solve the problem alone. Only by pulling together and sharing best practices can thwart cyber criminals and protect patients.
