Healthcare cybersecurity attacks are on the rise. As Protenus notes, industry data breaches increased by 48 percent between 2018 and 2019, with more than 41 million patient records compromised. Meanwhile, according to the 2019 HIMSS Cybersecurity Survey, 82 percent of hospitals said they suffered a “significant security incident” in the past 12 months. The result is an estimated $4 billion price tag for healthcare compromises in 2019 alone.
In fact, the prognosis for potential IT problems is now dire enough that some physicians’ training scenarios include simulated hospital ransomware attacks that force them to deal with the real-world consequences of cybersecurity failures. And while budgets are increasing — according to data from Cybersecurity Ventures, the industry is looking at $65 billion worth of spending on security products and services from 2017 to 2021 — breach risks refuse to budge.
The disconnect here is that specific attack responses often ignore the human element of healthcare cybersecurity. The solution? A holistic approach based on systematic treatment and assessment practices from the biopsychosocial model. Here’s what this looks like for healthcare IT.
The Biology of a Breach
First developed at the University of Rochester by Dr. George Engle and Dr. John Romano, the beyond assessing human impact healthcare cybersecurity
