Information Security in Hospitals and Long-Term Care Facilities
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Gleichzeitig werden nur in wenig anderen Bereichen mehr sensible Daten verabeitet oder hat IT-Sicherheit solche unmittelbaren Auswirkungen.
How Hospitals and Care Facilities Can Protect Patient Data from Cyberattacks
Digitalization presents challenges for hospitals and nursing facilities, but it also opens up new opportunities. While electronic health records and digital tools help to use scarce resources efficiently and ensure high-quality healthcare, executives, CISOs, and ISBs in hospitals and nursing facilities are facing new challenges in the digital age. A particular challenge is the ever-present threat to patient safety posed by cyberattacks. The sensitivity of the data processed in hospitals and nursing facilities is disproportionate to the IT security measures in place there. Attackers have long recognized this. The latest cybersecurity studies conclude that attacks on the IT systems of hospitals and nursing facilities are highly likely to occur and will have devastating consequences.
In response to this evident high risk, European and national legislators have woven a dense network of specific regulatory requirements to protect IT systems in hospitals and nursing homes. This applies not only to so-called critical infrastructures (so-called Kritis facilities). The IT-SiG in Germany and the NISG in Austria, the BSI Grundschutz including German § 8a BSIG, the B3S standard, and § 75c of the Social Code Book V (SGB V) are just a few examples of the relevant regulations.
Health Care Organisationen, die bereits Akarion GRC Lösungen im Einsatz haben
Why Hospitals and Nursing Facilities Need an ISMS
Compliance with hygiene standards is just one aspect of this. Regulatory requirements now also mandate that hospitals maintain an adequate level of IT security. As a result, hospitals and nursing facilities are required to implement a wide range of technical and organizational measures to protect their IT systems, document these measures transparently, and regularly review their procedures and systems. Clinics, hospitals, and nursing facilities are therefore required to establish an effective information security management system (ISMS). All of this is taking place amid rising cost pressures, staff reductions, and increasing pressure to digitize.
Why unsystematic documentation and outdated tools pose risks for clinics
Setting up an ISMS raises a number of substantive issues. In practice, it is evident that policies and other information security documents are mostly stored unsystematically and scattered. Furthermore, numerous stakeholders and responsible parties from different departments must be involved, and their tasks must be assigned and monitored. Hospitals and nursing facilities still frequently rely on Word and Excel. Demonstrating a properly implemented ISMS or emergency management (so-called Business Continuity Management, BCM) is therefore difficult, even though auditors and insurance companies regularly request this evidence. A lack of such evidence can therefore result not only in poor audit results but also in increased insurance premiums.
Using simple yet comprehensive software enables you to address the various challenges of establishing and operating an ISMS cost-effectively and efficiently. At Akarion, we offer you exactly this solution.
Efficient ISMS Implementation with the Akarion GRC Cloud
The Akarion GRC Cloud is a SaaS solution that can be used immediately, with no setup costs or technical implementation effort. Thanks to its intuitive user interface and Help Center, you’ll quickly find your way around every module of the Compliance Cloud (read detailed success stories from our customers here).
In addition to its intuitive user guidance, the GRC Cloud offers the necessary depth and functionality required for both an ISMS including BCM and other compliance topics such as data privacy and audit management or, for example, whistleblowing. The advantages are clear:
- Increased efficiency compared to Word & Excel, as all documents and information can be linked together without redundancies;
- Simpler cross-departmental documentation with transparent and customizable reports that can be generated at the click of a button;
- Compliance evidence—particularly updates—can be provided more quickly and collected without errors;
- external audits become more cost-effective and simpler thanks to prior internal audits and the traceable organization of documents within a single system;
- The use of a central tool alone already indicates a high level of maturity of the ISMS, as it enables the demonstration of integrated compliance. Compliance is thus practiced across departments, consistently documented, and the PDCA cycle can be continuously mapped;
- A SaaS solution ensures a crisis-proof ISMS compared to on-premise solutions (for example, if access to documents is impossible due to external circumstances, such as a fire);
- Through the use of SaaS, staff can focus on their core activities (healthcare) instead of tying up personnel and financial resources in software maintenance and support; and
- Teamwork is significantly easier and location-independent thanks to digital task distribution.
Thanks to the ISO 27001 certification of the Akarion GRC Cloud, our customers can provide transparent and auditor-recognized proof of their ISMS maturity level at any time. Furthermore, the ISMS can be easily expanded—for example, with our modules for data privacy, whistleblowing, or business continuity management.
