ISMS and BCM for Hospitals, Clinics and Care Facilities
NIS-2, rising cyber threats and the digitalization of healthcare are increasing pressure — information security and business continuity must today be implemented holistically and demonstrably.
Regulatory obligations for clinics and care facilities
When cyberattacks endanger patient care
Hospitals, clinics and care facilities are among the most threatened sectors of critical infrastructure. The sensitivity of the data processed — from electronic patient records to treatment plans and billing data — often stands in no relation to the IT protection measures in place. Ransomware attacks on clinics have been increasing for years and can in the worst case endanger human lives when IT systems fail and medical care is restricted.
At the same time, the regulatory landscape has fundamentally changed: the NIS-2 Directive significantly expands the circle of affected healthcare institutions — not just large KRITIS facilities, but also smaller clinics now fall under stricter requirements for cybersecurity, risk management and reporting obligations. Together with § 75c SGB V, BSI IT-Grundschutz, the industry-specific security standard B3S Healthcare, BSI C5 and the KRITIS Umbrella Act, a dense web of regulatory obligations emerges that makes a professional ISMS mandatory.
A common pattern is especially visible in hospital groups and trusteeships: while the main hospital has an established ISMS, affiliated facilities, medical care centers and care facilities often remain inadequately protected. The result is uneven protection levels, compliance gaps and increased risk during audits and certifications.
At the same time, healthcare institutions face enormous cost pressure and skills shortages. Specialized IT security experts are barely available — responsibility for information security often falls to IT management or the executive board alongside numerous other tasks. To build up and operate ISMS and BCMS professionally even with limited resources, an increasing number of institutions rely on specialized GRC software with automated workflows, pre-built catalogs of measures and AI-powered support.
Supply reliability even in a crisis
Why business continuity is vital for hospitals
In hardly any other industry does an IT outage have such direct consequences as in healthcare: when hospital information systems (HIS), imaging diagnostics or electronic patient records are unavailable, patient care is directly endangered. Surgeries must be postponed, emergency rooms closed to new patients and patients transferred to other hospitals.
Business Continuity Management (BCM) is therefore not an optional add-on project for clinics but vital. A BCMS ensures that medical care is maintained even in a crisis — from Business Impact Analysis (BIA) to identify time-critical care processes, through defined recovery time objectives (RTO) for IT systems and medical devices, to operational emergency handbooks with concrete instructions for crisis teams and ward managers.
The NIS-2 Directive explicitly requires affected institutions to implement measures for maintaining operations and crisis management — under personal liability of executive management. On top of this comes the growing digitalization through KHZG projects, electronic patient records and telemedicine services: every new digital dependency requires corresponding emergency planning.
For clinics, the decisive factor is the parallel implementation of ISMS and BCMS — not one after the other, but simultaneously. While the ISMS aims to prevent security incidents, the BCMS kicks in when preventive measures are not enough. Both systems share data on assets, risks and processes — if they are managed in different tools or even in spreadsheets, redundancy, lack of transparency and unnecessary extra effort emerge.
Parallel implementation offers tangible benefits: synergies through shared structures (both standards are based on the High Level Structure), earlier results in emergency planning, and consistent resource planning. In addition, cyber insurance providers increasingly require proof of established management systems — a lack of proof can lead to higher insurance premiums.
The Akarion GRC Cloud maps ISMS, BCMS and other compliance areas on a central data foundation. Assets and processes are captured once and are available across all modules — no duplicate work, no media breaks. The result is a holistic management system that is ready to use with no setup costs and grows with the institution's requirements.
The GRC Cloud for clinics and healthcare institutions
ISMS and BCMS for healthcare — on one platform
For healthcare institutions, a functioning management system for information security and business continuity is unavoidable given regulatory requirements. The question is not whether, but how efficiently the build-up and ongoing operation can succeed — especially under the cost and personnel pressure typical in healthcare.
The Akarion GRC Cloud — the SaaS platform of the German GRC software provider AKARION — offers the right foundation for this: with no setup costs, ready to use immediately and with the depth needed for critical infrastructure requirements in healthcare:
- ISMS and BCMS on a central data foundation — capture assets, processes and risks once and use them across modules, without redundancy or duplicate work
- Business continuity with BIA, SLA/OLA management and emergency handbooks — identify time-critical care processes, define recovery times for HIS, diagnostics and medical systems and link emergency plans directly with immediate measures (compliant with ISO 22301 and BSI 200-4)
- Multi-tenancy and inheritance for hospital groups and trusteeships — centrally manage templates, roles and security policies and roll them out to affiliated hospitals, medical care centers and care facilities
- Smart Content AI for AI-powered generation of risk scenarios, business impact scenarios, measures and audit content — with up to 80% time savings during initial setup
- Simultaneous mapping of multiple standards — ISO 27001, BSI IT-Grundschutz, NIS-2, B3S Healthcare, BSI C5 and other frameworks in parallel
- Integrated audit management with digital checklists, third-party risk management and seamless tracking of measures — for § 75c SGB V evidence and KRITIS audits
plus customizable dashboards and reporting for compliance that can be demonstrated at any time to auditors, regulatory authorities and cyber insurers.
As a SaaS solution, the Akarion GRC Cloud remains accessible even in a crisis — unlike locally installed software or paper files that are unavailable on-site during an incident.
AKARION itself is ISO 27001 certified and officially listed by the BSI as an IT-Grundschutz tool. Hosting takes place 100% on European servers (STACKIT) — for true digital sovereignty and maximum data protection for sensitive patient data.
Over 900 organizations already trust the Akarion GRC Cloud — including clinics, care facilities and healthcare providers such as Sana Kliniken.
Practice shows: using a specialized GRC platform offers significant benefits over fragmented solutions:
- Efficiency gains, as all documents and information are linked without redundancy
- Easier cross-department documentation with transparent reports at the push of a button
- Faster compliance evidence — updates can be captured error-free and traceably
- Cheaper external audits through prior internal audits and traceable preparation in one system
- Demonstrable maturity — the mere use of an integrated GRC tool indicates integrated compliance
- Location-independent collaboration in teams through digital task distribution and workflows
The combination of intuitive usability, flexible scalability and technical depth — from risk analysis through business impact analyses to audit preparation — makes the Akarion GRC Cloud the ideal tool for healthcare institutions that want not only to document but actively live information security and resilience.
Healthcare organizations implementing their ISMS and BCMS with the Akarion GRC Cloud.
