While artificial intelligence platforms and tools promise to offer encouraging potential in healthcare, many are unprepared to deal with the risks these emerging technologies pose – similar to the early days of social media, said Keith Fricke, co-managing partner and principal consultant at tw-Security.
“The things AI platforms can do in healthcare are amazing. I think that it can go a long way in providing improved patient care,” he said in an interview with Information Security Media Group.
But, “the challenges that I see are that many organizations haven’t put together any sort of a governance structure about making decisions about who should be using AI, how they should be using it,” he said.
“We sort of went through a similar situation when social media started creeping into the business world. There were policies that needed to be created and access and education to the workforce,” he said.
“The difference, though, is that social media is really a one-way vehicle for data. We’re posting things out there for other people to see. Artificial intelligence is responding to prompts that we’re giving it – and it’s giving us information back that we need to trust, but verify,” he said.
“We don’t know a whole lot about what goes on behind the scenes with artificial intelligence computing – how is it getting its large language models? How is it being educated? We really need to question what that all means,” he said.
In this audio interview with Information Security Media Group (see audio link below photo), Fricke also discussed:
- Cyber challenges that small and rural healthcare organizations face – and training programs and other resources that can help;
- Provisions of the proposed update to the HIPAA Security Rule that are most needed, and the proposals that will potentially be most challenging for many regulated firms to implement;
- Top data privacy, security, incident response and cyber talent challenges facing rural and small healthcare providers.
Fricke provides virtual CISO and cybersecurity advisory services for covered entities and business associates. He has more than 35 years of experience in IT, with 20 years focused on healthcare information security tactical and strategic initiatives. Before joining tw-Security, he served as CISO at Mercy Health, formerly Catholic Health Partners, with 24 hospitals across three states.