Cybersecurity Check In

No one likes to think about the possibility that patients might be hurt or killed as a result of cyber attacks. But all signs indicate that this is a real possibility and a serious problem. Attacks on Health IT systems such as EHRs or patient portals, electronic medical devices, or on standard healthcare digital systems can be a threat to patient safety.

To combat the cybersecurity threat, Congress and the Obama administration passed the  Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which established mechanisms for the US Government to collaborate with private industry to respond to cybersecurity threats. Lawmakers recognized the unique problems with cybersecurity in health technology and created the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force, charged to make recommendations to Congress regarding specific cybersecurity issues.  To paraphrase, we are to investigate:

Our Task Force is asking the healthcare, patient and technology communities for help in this assignment. We are asking for discussion on these issues to be on platforms like The Health Care Blog, Reddit and Twitter, so the community may contribute new ideas as well as refine the ideas contributed by others. We are taking a crowdsourcing approach to cybersecurity ideation so we can aggregate and assess what people have to say about these issues...