Bringing Cybersecurity Training to Healthcare Staff

Cybersecurity is integral to every industry, but in healthcare, compromised cybersecurity can put patients’ lives at risk. Healthcare cybersecurity training is essential to defend systems from unauthorized users and protect the availability and confidentiality of patient data.

Hospital and healthcare provider records contain sensitive personal information and have been subject to mandatory security and privacy requirements since before digitalization. However, moving data online has introduced new risks to the private information patients entrust to healthcare providers.

Healthcare Is on the Cybersecurity Front Lines

Healthcare data breaches are a regular occurrence, with incidences increasing yearly since 2009 up until 2021. In 2022, the industry saw fewer data breaches than its prior year, but it remains a high number at around 51 million individual records.

Most of these breaches are due to hacking and IT incidents, which puts healthcare workers on the front lines of cybersecurity battles. They are tasked with protecting large volumes of valuable private data, including names, birthdays, addresses, and Social Security numbers.

Internal Threats to Data Security

While most of the data breaches are a result of hacking, they aren’t all executed exclusively by outsiders. Healthcare providers and employees can unwittingly or intentionally facilitate a hacking attempt.

A single human error can open a system up to hacking. In 2021 looking across all industries, IBM found that human error contributed to 95% of all successful data breaches.

The State of Healthcare Cybersecurity

A 2023 Salesforce survey of more than 400 healthcare workers revealed the following:

• Two-thirds of healthcare workers surveyed agreed that protecting data is their responsibility.
• 57% say their job is more digitized than it was two years ago.
• 22% report security protocols are not strictly enforced in their workplace.
• 31% don’t know what to do in the event of a breach.
• 40% consider their connected devices like mobile phones and laptops a cybersecurity risk.
• 46% have accessed work documents or systems from their personal device.
• 33% use the same passwords across several personal and work-related logins.
• 39% use multi-factor authentication every time.
• 25% have accidentally clicked on a suspicious link at work.

Tips for Implementing Healthcare Cybersecurity Training

Patient care is the priority of many healthcare workers, and it can be challenging to get their full attention on non-medical education in a healthcare setting. For this reason, it helps to enlist executive support for cybersecurity training. If it comes from the top, you’ll get better buy-in from the other professionals.

Once you have educated vital personnel on the critical importance of healthcare cybersecurity training, here are steps to make the training successful.

Tailor Your Training with Relevant, Actionable Instruction

Define clear objectives for the training based on current behavior, knowledge gaps, and threats. Give participants the exact steps they need to take to protect patient data.

If healthcare professionals or office workers are engaging in behaviors that open the system to hackers, identify those specific behaviors and explain why they are a problem. Then, offer alternative solutions. The most effective program will be based on your organization’s current behavior and needs.

Keep Key Messages Top of Mind Across Platforms

With the volume of the cybersecurity threat leveled against healthcare and the value of the patients’ information, a single training on its own is not enough. Continue to keep cybersecurity top of mind by communicating key messages across the organization’s preferred platforms.

Security is not an option in a healthcare setting. By getting executive support, tailoring training to address the threats faced by the organization, and making sure the message stays visible to different staff members throughout the workforce, hospitals, and medical facilities can protect patient data and keep vital information safe.

Cybersecurity Done Right

For many healthcare organizations, it makes sense to have a dedicated cybersecurity expert leading data protection efforts. If you are concerned about your company’s security, we are experts as the second-largest IT staffing firm at finding and hiring cybersecurity experts. We’re happy to help! Connect with our team and find out more.