Arguably no other sector has felt the impact of COVID-19 more than healthcare. Beyond being on the front lines of our global pandemic battle, healthcare is being rapidly transformed from in-person care and paper records to a model more closely resembling mobile banking.

Technology is playing a leading role in this transformation – including artificial intelligence, blockchain, mobile, and IoT – but so are patients and healthcare delivery organizations. Either out of necessity or convenience, regular patient care is increasingly being delivered digitally. Forrester estimated that there were more than 1 billion virtual U.S. healthcare visits last year. Patients have quickly gravitated towards telehealth and telemedicine with a majority not just expecting, but now demanding digital access to healthcare services, providers, and records. At the same time, healthcare organizations and their delivery partners like labs, pharmacies and insurance companies have recognized the tremendous efficiency and efficacy gains to be had, which is especially welcome at a time of escalating costs elsewhere.

But it’s not all puppies and unicorns. Healthcare is not only vulnerable to bad actors, but also being actively targeted as more services move online. At $7.13M, healthcare has the highest average data breach cost, almost double the overall average. Security tools that identify and respond to incidents can cut the cost by more than half, but only 23% of healthcare organizations have such tools deployed.

As healthcare looks to embrace its digital future, security and identity are more important than ever. Specific concerns for healthcare IT leaders include:

  • Cloud security – including infrastructure security for cloud and SaaS applications and security of managed service offerings like Identity, PKI, and signing.
  • Compliance – protecting patient data privacy including electronic private health information (ePHI) and electronic health records (eHR).
  • Digital healthcare delivery – ensuring the security of telehealth services, healthcare infrastructure, IoT devices and mobile payments.
  • Strong trust environment – establishing and maintaining trusted user and device identities, access, and data.

Watch our Roadmap for Secure Digital Healthcare to learn best practices to safely navigate this transformation.