Many healthcare providers across the country – especially smaller and rural hospitals and clinics as well as federally qualified health centers – are constantly battling cybersecurity resource constraints, and particularly serious workforce shortages, said Jennifer Stoll, chief external affairs officer at OCHIN, a non-profit provider of health IT services and products.
“There’s so much need across the entire healthcare delivery system for cybersecurity support. We’re in a really big fight. Even if you put some resources out there, there’s so much need. It may never get to the most targeted places which are rural and low-resource providers across the country,” said Stoll, who is co-chair of the Health Sector Coordinating Council’s Underserved Provider Cybersecurity Task Group
The task group recently completed a study that examined the challenges faced by under-resourced healthcare providers.
“What we learned is that there are vulnerabilities everywhere. And these are organizations that absolutely will commit resources to be fully secure on the cyber front. But they’re making tradeoffs every day,” she said.
“Do you do cyber training, or do you hire a nurse right? What are the right equipment that you need? How do you make older equipment cybersecure when you don’t have the resources to buy newer equipment?”
Those are just some of the basic cyber related questions that many small and rural healthcare providers struggle to answer daily, she said.
In this audio interview (see audio link below photo), Stoll also discussed:
- Tips for stretching cyber resources;
- Third-party cybersecurity risk;
- Government and private industry cyber programs to help under-resourced healthcare entities.
Stoll serves as the chief external affairs officer for OCHIN, a national nonprofit health information technology and research organization that provides solutions, clinical insights, and advanced technology support to a diverse range of healthcare providers including community health centers, critical access hospitals and tribal nations. She is also co-chair of the Health Sector Coordinating Council’s Underserved Provider Cybersecurity Task Group.