ABSTRACT
Based on my professional experience in the healthcare industry, I believe healthcare, as a whole, is about ten (10) to fifteen (15) years behind other organizations in other industries when it comes to information security and protecting individual’s privacy. Healthcare organizations have a lot of catching up to do and in most cases, new technology always outpaces regulations when it comes to enforcing certain compliance requirements. As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) director of Emergency Preparedness, Operations, and Medical Countermeasures, Suzanne Schwartz, MD, puts it, “hospitals and health care systems are under constant attempts at attack and intrusion of their networks” (Miliard, 2016b). The self-proclaimed hackers at Black Hat also agree with my analysis indicating that the healthcare industry is “at the top of the list when it comes to targeted industries” and the healthcare industry “seems the most vulnerable” (thycotic, 2015).
