The public-private center was formed to address the increasing number of cybersecurity attacks targeting vulnerable healthcare ecosystem, including health systems and health plans, HITRUST said in a statement.
The center facilitates early identification of cybersecurity attacks, coordination of response activities, and creation of best practices. In addition, the center makes available cyber threat information to the broader industry.
The center works with the healthcare industry and service providers to identify and implement a method to provide information to all types of organizations and technical competency levels within the entire industry. Once the method has been implemented, the center will transition to a formal Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC), a trusted entity established by critical infrastructure owners and operators to provide cybersecurity sector analysis and information sharing.
“As the healthcare industry continues its conversion process to full patient electronic medical records, it will most certainly become a more frequent target of cybersecurity attacks, and having such a system in place in the near future will be key to collaboratively responding and preventing such attacks”, said Jorge DeCesare, chief data security administrator at Dignity Health.