February 7, 2012 
Our thanks to Bloomberg for inviting CynergisTek CEO, Mac McMillan, to contribute to the commentary on its recently published study on healthcare data security for Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.” See the video:
http://www.businessweek.com/video/#video=FieWVnMzoUmrcbAVSk56rgcsjIfXbw9v
Sponsored by Bloomberg Government and The Ponemon Institute, the study reveals that healthcare companies, today, spend about $23M each year to stop about 68% of data breaches but need to increase that spend to $155M to stop 95% of breaches. This study, like those previously published by Ponemon and others, validates what we have known for years. Healthcare’s spend on IT security falls woefully short of what is required to safeguard patient data and the delivery of care.
As more of our industry’s shortfalls become increasingly public, whether through global reporting like what we see here from Bloomberg, or through the local media when a data breach occurs in Anywhere, USA, how will we respond?
Governance for IT security and data protection must be seeded in the executive suite of every healthcare organization. If your IT security program is cloistered away in the bowels of your data center, and your compliance and audit team’s only tools are paper and pencil to evaluate your data protection performance, it is time for a change. That change starts at the top and it starts with translating data security risk into a common business framework that your executive team will understand.
Let’s get busy!
CynergisTek, Inc. 