Why Healthcare Provider CIOs Need to Prioritize Medical Device Security

Take a minute to picture the volume of healthcare data being transferred and stored every day — data from IoT and connected medical devices, electronic health and medical records, clinical workstations, and smart hospital applications for patients, providers, researchers, and administrators. All of this data needs protecting.

The digitization of care is creating a more complex and rapidly-evolving threat landscape, as the number of connected devices on a healthcare network continues to rise. Today, more devices require network connectivity, more BYOD devices are present on hospital networks, and devices are often moving throughout a care facility.

The proliferation of smart and connected medical devices will only continue in the future. Between 2020 and 2028, the smart medical devices market is projected to grow by 20.1% CAGR.¹

With this significant increase in the adoption of medical devices comes higher risk of security breach, and providers must protect and prevent device breaches across a broad spectrum of mobile, medical and infrastructure endpoints.

According to a report by Gartner, “there has been increased interest in managing the cybersecurity risks that medical devices pose to healthcare provider networks.”

Per the Gartner report, “Medical devices are unlike traditional IoT devices, and healthcare providers need an alternative method to address IoMT security that has the ability to discover, identify, onboard, monitor and control connected devices. Access policies must also be consistently and continuously enforced.”

So where should you begin when it comes to managing the medical devices within your healthcare facility? Getting started on the right path to mitigate these risks begins with the CIO creating an accurate medical device inventory. To read more, access the full report by Gartner below.