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admin
- October 2, 2025
As hospital planning consultants in India, we have observed a fundamental shift in healthcare risk management over the past two decades. The question is no longer whether hospitals will face a cyberattack, but when—and more importantly, whether they are prepared to respond effectively.
In 2024 alone, cybercriminals compromised over 133 million patient records, with healthcare breaches costing an average of $11.05 million. These figures are not just numbers. They represent patients whose lives depend on systems working without disruption, medical staff who require immediate access to information, and communities that trust healthcare providers with their most sensitive data.
Why Healthcare Cybersecurity Is Different
Healthcare cybersecurity has unique challenges that require specialized solutions. Unlike banks, which can allow fewer transactions to occur while they sort out the security incident, hospitals cannot cease operations for patients.
When ransomware impacts the manufacturing industry, the production stops. When it hits a hospital, lives are at stake.
Imagine this scenario: It is 2 AM, and your emergency department is caring for a patient in cardiac arrest. The physician needs the patient’s medication history and allergies, which is locked in the electronic health record system by ransomware. Do you provide care with some unknowns, or do you waste minutes trying to gain access by some alternative means?
This scenario creates a paradox for cybersecurity. You need to have security controls proactively protecting patient data, but those very controls cannot delay the speed of access to provide quality care for patients. How do you reconcile those two competing demands?
The Regulatory Compliance Connection
Through the years spent assisting hospitals with accreditation standards, we see that cybersecurity is becoming an increasing requirement within the standards they are attempting to align with:
- The Joint Commission’s information management standards require protections for privacy and security of information.
- The CAP laboratory accreditation has considerations around data integrity and access protections.
- The Security Rule under HIPAA includes mandated technical, administrative, and physical safeguards.
- Digital Personal Data Protection Act was passed in 2023 and rules have now been notified. These require safety of personal data.
So what is the takeaway? These are not just additional compliance burdens; they are part of the same broader risk management strategy. Effective hospital leaders will incorporate cybersecurity requirements into their existing quality management systems and processes and think about cyber security requirements in the same vein as any other regulatory compliance requirements, not as additional compliance boxes to check.
Think about any quality assurance processes currently in place. Hospitals are always completing periodic risk assessments, rectifying privacy and security gaps and demonstrating continuous improvements to accreditation surveyors when engaged in a survey. Why not do the same with a methodical approach on cybersecurity?
Building Your Cybersecurity Foundation
Where should you begin? Start with a comprehensive risk assessment that examines three critical areas: your data assets, potential threats, and existing vulnerabilities.
Asset Inventory and Classification
Hospitals should begin by creating an inventory of every system that stores, processes or transmits protected health information. This is not just for obvious systems like EHRs or laboratory information systems but should also account for:
- Connected medical devices,
- Backup systems,
- Staff mobile devices.
During a recent round of assessments around hospitals, critical gaps in asset management were identified. One site located 47 networked medical devices that were untracked, and another site found backup systems with patient data that had not been updated or secured in three years.
Threat Analysis
Healthcare organizations face both external and internal threats. External threats include nation state actors wanting access to valuable medical records, cybercriminal organizations deploying ransomware and opportunistic hackers trying to exploit vulnerabilities that are readily available. Internal threats can either come from a bad actor or by an employee with good intentions but creates a risk from actions they take.
Vulnerability Assessment
Regular vulnerability assessments should provide analysis of technical vulnerabilities, process vulnerabilities, and human factors vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit. Priority to attack vectors should be based on potential impact to patient care and regulatory compliance, not just technical severity scores.
Staff Training: Your First Line of Defense
Human factors encompass both the highest cybersecurity risk and the strongest means of mitigating that risk within healthcare organizations. Based on my consulting work with healthcare organizations, hospitals with strong security cultures outperform hospitals that simply implement technology.
- Create job-specific and risk-based training programs.
- The training programs for clinical staff need to include concepts and focus on protecting patient data during the actual delivery of care.
- The administrative staff will need to have awareness training on business email compromise, social engineering approaches, and the full spectrum of scams.
Utilize practical scenarios that staff are likely to support, such as suspicious emails, unexpected system behavior, or requests for sensitive information. Conduct simulated phishing exercises to assess levels of awareness and to provide remedial training to the employees needing intervention.
Most importantly, foster a culture in which your staff to identify security awareness as part of their daily work as opposed to additional task. Recognize and reward staff who demonstrate good security practices or report a potential security incident.
Incident Response and Business Continuity
Even with strong prevention measures in place, security incidents will happen. The more effective the capabilities to respond to incidents, the shorter the negative impact on patient care, and the faster healthcare organizations can return to normal operations.
Plans should incorporate:
- Obvious reporting and escalation processes,
- Clear communication process, and
- Defined decision-making authority that includes safety for patients.
Additionally, healthcare organizations would benefit from business continuity plans to ensure patient care continues during long-term system downtimes. Manual procedures for critical functions, backup communication systems, and alternative providers are all important aspects.
Measuring Success and Continuous Improvement
How can you assess your investment in cybersecurity? Consider metrics that are relevant to healthcare executives and board members such as:
- Reduction in the number of successful phishing attempts and security occurrences,
- Improvement in patch management turnaround time,
- Improvement in compliance with some regulatory requirements.
Measuring cybersecurity investments often requires assessments of more than just technical controls; such assessments should also include how controls cascade into clinical workflows and/or quality management processes. Utilize lessons learned to inform enhancements to security controls, policies, and procedure updates as well as training programs.
Your Path Forward
Healthcare cybersecurity is one of the most pressing challenges for hospital leaders today. The combination of life-critical operations, strict regulatory demands, and increasingly sophisticated threats creates a risk environment unlike any other.
Yet, when treated as a strategic enabler rather than a compliance burden, cybersecurity can strengthen both safety and efficiency. At its core, it is a discipline of risk management that directly supports patient care and organizational resilience.
By weaving cybersecurity into existing quality management, accreditation readiness, and operational excellence programs, hospitals can create sustainable systems that adapt as threats and technologies evolve. The payoff goes far beyond risk reduction—mature cybersecurity programs improve efficiency, boost staff confidence, strengthen reputation, and, most importantly, maintain the trust of patients and communities.
For hospitals in India, the time to act is now. Every day of delay heightens risks and narrows the options for effective response. The journey begins with a comprehensive risk assessment, implementing core security controls, and building a culture of awareness across the workforce.
This is where AeonMed adds value. With deep expertise in hospital planning, accreditation, risk and quality systems, AeonMed helps hospitals integrate cybersecurity into the very fabric of their operations. Their approach ensures that security investments are not just technical upgrades but strategic moves—aligned with patient safety, compliance requirements, and long-term sustainability.
Your patients, your staff, and your community are counting on you to get this right—and with the right partner, excellence in cybersecurity can become a hallmark of excellence in care.