Everyone talks about how healthcare is overwhelmed. That’s an understatement. Frankly, healthcare has been under tremendous stress since well before the pandemic. While IT isn’t the only factor inflating pressure, it’s a major contributor. Applications are decentralized and outdated, the fragmented IT environment has proven unsustainable, and change is necessary for digital transformation. But what exactly does that look like?

Put yourself in my shoes… a Code Stroke patient arrives in our busy ER. Time is of the essence. We need to rapidly diagnose and treat the patient to prevent long term paralysis or even death. But nothing happens until we can access their health records, review the relevant data, order a CT scan, consult our colleagues, and initiate treatment. And none of that can happen at all because our hospital has put in a new enhanced password policy. As well they should. Keeping protected health information (PHI) private and secure is of utmost concern in healthcare…but more on that later.

COVID-19 forced a spike in policy-makers’ interest and willingness to invest in public health; a spike that is unfortunately retreating to the old business as usual. (President Biden, in his State of the Union speech, warned “we remain vigilant” while calling for an end to the emergency, but quickly switched the subject from the urgency of public health to prosecuting fraud.) Luckily, along with increased attention came a raft of intelligent suggestions for changing how public health institutions carry out their mission, starting with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Healthcare is experiencing an onslaught of challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic, increased cost and movement of labor, talent shortages, and the rise of telehealth options have upended the traditional healthcare environment.  Cyberattacks pose more risk than ever, as government compliance measures and economic turbulence add to the overwhelming complexity. Naturally, healthcare demands continue unabated. Yet, there’s one challenge creating major barriers to growth: the lack of investment in aligned and integrated cybersecurity controls.

Across all sectors, organizations are relying on third-party software vendors that directly access their systems. Whether it’s to manage customer relationships, just-in-time inventory systems, Web development platforms, and everything else in between, more external vendors are regularly connecting to the network, often through privileged accounts.

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