Health IT – Getting it right!

Who Do You Call When the Cloud is Down?

By Samantha on November 25th, 2009

Health IT Professionals fear Attacks to EHR Databases in ‘Cyber war’

Health IT news official, Neil Versel reports that Chad Skidmore, director of network services for Spokane, Wash.-based Inland Northwest Health Services reported to the federal Health IT Standards committee that it’s not the thought of hackers that present the greatest threat to EHR databases, but terrorist groups.

     The thought “keeps me up at night and fairly scared”

The thought of someone seeking to hack into the U.S. Health system and create chaos “keeps me up at night and fairly scared”, Skidmore exclaims. Skidmore also said that he envisions a malevolent cyber-attacker that could, for example, delete vital information regarding patients that are allergic to penicillin.  Therefore, this puts the patients at risk of a serious allergic reaction. This type of attack in a “cyber war” against the U.S. would “destabilize the population” and cause widespread panic. According to Skidmore, healthcare organizations are especially susceptible to cyber attacks because they tend to invest less in information security than other divisions of the economy do.

     “Who do you call when the cloud is down?”

Ryan Smith, assistant vice president of eBusiness, part of Intermountain Health Care in Salt Lake City, told the panel that health care organizations could use cloud computing to remotely store patient records. Cloud computing will make it gradually more difficult for hospitals to monitor and track who accesses patient records. However, cloud computing also makes it difficult to repair records when the service is unavailable. Therefore, Smith asked “Who do you call when the cloud is down?”

LINK: http://www.fiercehealthit.com/story/health-it-pros-warn-network-vulnerabilities-during-cyberwar/2009-11-23?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

LINK: http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20091120_8634.php?oref=rss?zone=NGtoday