Recently, a colleague shared a very personal experience his wife was about to face: she had been diagnosed with a heart condition and needed a pacemaker. Upon hearing the news, a slew of thoughts and questions ran through their minds. “How will this affect daily life? How long will the device last? What type of pacemaker is best for this condition?”
And while speaking to doctors provided the peace of mind they needed, they quickly began extensive research, gathering insights from news articles, patient forums and health statistics. Considering recent reports on hackers targeting medical devices, they also had to take another important factor into consideration – which manufacturer would provide the digital security they needed?
This experience is just one of many that sheds light on a larger trend. With the volume of information at our fingertips, patients are taking healthcare decisions into their own hands.
Consumer Journey in Healthcare — The New Norm
Healthcare decisions carry significant weight, directly impacting our well-being. As patients and their loved ones take a more active role in their healthcare and digitization transforms every industry, patient journeys are increasingly mirroring consumer experiences. The demand for instant access to data and medical records means healthcare consumerization is here.
Accenture dove into this healthcare dynamic transformation and found that leading companies that prioritize customer-centric service as a value center achieve 3.5 times the revenue growth compared to those treating it as a cost center. We live in a hyper connected, digital world. As the generational shift continues, organizations are adapting to meet new demands. Tech companies are now involved in modernizing patient experiences like home healthcare, wearable diagnostics and monitoring devices. This technology is not created with cybersecurity at the forefront. Data, access, devices, software and connectivity across the cloud and legacy environments result in an expanding attack surface, and IoMT devices are no exceptions.
IoMT Devices Create Opportunity — That’s Not Always A Good Thing
With the acceleration of modernization across various facets of healthcare, one in particular is opening opportunities for not only providers, but unfortunately, malicious actors, too. And that’s the proliferation of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices.
IoMT devices include diagnostic imaging products, such as MRI and CT machines, infusion pumps and other connected devices that perform clinical operations within hospitals and clinics. From a provider’s standpoint, IoMT devices are revolutionary. They allow the streamlining of various services, such as the monitoring of patient vitals remotely, infusion of medication, as well as patient and staff tracking. It makes sense, then, that the global value of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in healthcare is expected to reach $332.67 billion by 2027.
Unfortunately, this progress has driven an expanded cyber threat landscape. Many IoMT devices are running on outdated operating systems that cannot be patched. In fact, Unit 42 research found that an alarming 75% of infusion pumps scanned had known security gaps that put them at heightened risk of being compromised by attackers. With unsecured connected devices leading to patient care disruptions, IoMT security is essential.
Can You Secure Every Medical Device, Everywhere, at Once?
While IoMT devices were not created with cybersecurity at the forefront, a robust security strategy can alleviate concerns of attacks for both organizations and patients, allowing all to focus on seamless, quality patient care.
That’s why healthcare organizations are reevaluating their approach to cyber protection and moving toward the AI-powered comprehensive platform approach necessary for complete endpoint security. Platformization reduces the number of point solutions that lead to inherent vulnerabilities across the landscape and uses a single platform approach for threat detection, monitoring, investigation and response. This allows healthcare IT and BioMed teams to ensure visibility and risk assessment of all connected medical and operational devices, Zero Trust access controls, continuous behavior monitoring and overall simplified operations.
Securing Medical Devices Boosts Patient Safety and Competitive Advantage
Understanding vulnerabilities and reducing the attack surface optimizes response times and overall organizational resilience. From an operations standpoint, securing IoMT devices drives reliability throughout inventory levels, enables data-backed decision-making regarding usage and manages compliance for every device.
Big picture: healthcare organizations can ensure continuous patient care and clinical workflows while confidently innovating new services without risk to the business.
The positive impact that connected clinical devices can make on patient lives is unmatched. And with added device security to remove susceptibilities to cyber threats, patients’ safety and privacy are now protected, removing an added stress to an already challenging time.
Advancing Security for Human Health
Just like my colleague and his wife, the patient journey is empowered by the digital age of healthcare. Cybersecurity must bolster this transformation.
By simplifying network security operations through platformization, healthcare organizations can significantly minimize the disruption of care and maximize technology investments for competitive advantage and the safety of those who use their devices.
Palo Alto Networks and Accenture combine advanced visibility and cybersecurity governance tools with end-to-end cloud services to help healthcare organizations around the world securely integrate systems, devices and data in real-time, no matter how big their ecosystems are. Our network security platform with Medical IoT Security ensures that all of these network-connected assets are visible, segmented correctly and protected. Read our whitepaper to learn how you can leverage platformization to protect your devices, your patients and your organization.
To gain a better understanding of the state of the healthcare industry, IoMT security, or the role of platformization, visit our resource hub. And to learn more about how your healthcare organization can benefit from these new capabilities, register for one of our upcoming Medical IoT Security Hands-on-Workshops.