The original article appears on the Texas Healthcare Trustees' website
The article was originally presented as a Boardroom Brief Newsletter.
Improving organizational engagement is paramount in the face of increasing data breach attacks. This engagement must extend beyond the IT/IS department and involve hospital executive leadership. This article will highlight the importance of hospital executive involvement in data breach defense and provide strategies for effective engagement.
The Need for Hospital Executive Involvement in Data Breach Defense
Hospital executives, including CEOs, COOs, CCOs, CPOs, CAOs, VPs of Clinical Operations, CNIOs, CMOs, and CMIOs, play a critical role in data breach defense. These executives are more familiar with and focus on operations in selected hospitals and clinics than IT/IS staff. They are also more focused on selected hospital systems such as EHR/EMR, Financial, Telemedicine, Laboratory, NICU/Labor, Paging, Payment, Billing, Nursing Station, Health Information Exchange (HIE), Radiology, Badging (physical security), Nutrition, Imaging, and Pyxis Pharmacy.
Moreover, hospital executives have more responsibility for HIPAA regulatory compliance and possible data breach disclosure obligations. They are also more concerned about patient safety, reputational damage, and financial impacts such as regulatory fines and class action lawsuits.
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