Beyond HIPAA Compliance… – Robert Hill and Dave Glenn

HIPAA Compliance Healthcare Cybersecurity

Many people incorrectly equate HIPAA compliance with cybersecurity. While HIPAA compliance is a key requirement  for healthcare,  it is not enough to protect your organization from cyber risk. Many organizations that are technically compliant continue to suffer debilitating cybersecurity events. Here are 3 areas you can focus on to ensure a strong cybersecurity posture that aligns with HIPAA compliance: 

3 Areas of Focus for Healthcare Cybersecurity Maturity and HIPAA Compliance

Cyber Risk Gap Analysis and Prioritization and Risk Management (RM)

Conducting a security risk gap analysis to establish a baseline is a critical first step in working towards cybersecurity and risk management maturity. This process involves objectively analyzing your current state against a framework to understand your security and risk posture. Once you have that baseline, and by understanding the potential business impact, you can prioritize measures specific to your organization to achieve your desired state and meet compliance requirements. Measuring potential impact on your organization and only then prioritizing remediation activities ensures that you get the best value and protection for your resource, time, and financial investment. This allows you to fix the highest priority items first, based upon your unique requirements.  

Cloud and Transformational Security (CTS)

Healthcare organizations rely on cloud connected components more than ever, and cloud architectures are becoming increasingly complex, often incorporating  hybrid or multi-cloud environments. This reliance on the cloud opens cybersecurity risks that HIPAA compliance alone cannot address. When it comes to cloud-based devices or software, a well-executed cloud risk strategy, when properly executed, prevents oversight and provides assurance that privacy and security risks to critical data and systems are mitigated. 

Vendor Risk Management (VRM)

In order to comply with HIPAA regulation, healthcare organizations must have third-party vendors complete a security risk assessment when protected health information (PHI) is involved. As a result the vendor and the organization are aware of security gaps that must have a remediation plan before they work together. In order to proactively manage risks to the business between annual assessments, vendor management needs to be treated as a continuous program. Creating a formal vendor risk management program establishes a consistent system to manage and measure vendor posture and impact. 

The Cyturus Approach to Healthcare Cybersecurity and HIPAA Compliance

Creating a system for assessing cybersecurity risk, detecting gaps, and prioritizing corrective action can be a complex process. While many organizations have succeeded in establishing robust internal risk management systems, the journey to success can be extremely costly, time consuming, and frustrating. The Cyturus platform and engagement model provides a proven process to help healthcare providers and systems not only comply with regulatory mandates, but simultaneously build a strategy that aligns business objectives and technology infrastructure. 

The Cyturus Cyber Risk Tracker (CRT) is a unique cloud-based platform that enables continuous risk management while tracking progress for cybersecurity maturity across fifteen key areas, including the three above. The CRT system provides a centralized repository for all of your risk data, a dashboard for fast executive visibility as well as a proven process for delivering sustainable ongoing security and compliance maturity. The system shortens the cycle from annual or semi-annual assessments to real-time continuous visibility into your current remediation progress, new risks that may have appeared, and potential new priorities. This integrated approach conserves valuable time and resources (very often in short supply) while maximizing the effectiveness of your data security plan.

Cyturus enables organizations to build an accurate picture of their current maturity level using the patent pending Adaptive Risk Model (ARM) process that consists of the steps Identify, Measure, Prioritize, and Remediate. That enables organizations to quantify impact, continuously measure current  risk posture and develop a more efficient process, while effectively managing the remediation process. This model significantly enhances the level of commitment and communication quality between business and technology decision makers and leaders within organizations and helps to remove the “analysis paralysis” that results in inaction, ineffective strategy, and inadequate response so often found after regulatory cyber risk assessments. 

For more information on how Cyturus enables healthcare organizations to strategically manage risk and compliance from a single centralized platform, and how this could benefit your organization please reach out to book  a free meeting.