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- The Role of Cybersecurity in Healthcare
With the recent cyber attacks on healthcare companies and health systems, it’s natural to ask: how secure is our information? Given that technology is sweeping into every corner of the industry, the question becomes all the more important.
Here are some thoughts on the subject.
These attacks can have devastating consequences, compromising patient safety, causing financial losses, and damaging the reputations of healthcare organizations.
Public Market Update: Average Sector Performance
Let’s first take a look at the HealthTech market. (As per usual, we are excluding companies from the analysis that are trading below $1 as of 8/30/24. This is to reduce skewing of results.)
HealthTech is slowly climbing out of the red; however, 💊 Biopharma and 🖥️ Access to Care are decidedly dragging down the sector overall.
🖥️Access to Care A closer look at this subsector shows what we’ve seen in months prior. The recent expiration of government subsidies for internet access is affecting membership and revenues for online health services companies.
💊 Biopharma As mentioned in a prior newsletter, the trend of reduced production is likely continuing and contributing to the drop in performance. A deeper dive also reveals that its just a handful of companies at fault, displaying massive drops in their value (think -70 to -90%).
In better news, 🏥 Hospital Operations has rebounded with a bang. A couple of likely reasons:
🦴 RadNet is leading the pack with a 90%+ increase in share price since last year, likely reflecting the FDA approval of AI/ML radiology devices.
💵 R1 RCM, for revenue cycle management, & 🧑🤝🧑 Sharecare, a platform that connects physicians & hospitals with their communities, are both up over 30%. This illustrates a likely boost in hospital earnings and an increased focus on population health measures, a key component of primary and preventative care.
The 🤖 AI boom is fueling some of this growth and it will be interesting to see how the HealthTech market evolves as the technology advances. Stay tuned to see if HealthTech follows the typical September/October overall market dips!
Learn more about each sector by clicking here: |
Articles Worth Reading
The Crucial Role of Cybersecurity in Healthcare
Cyber security threats come in many forms, including: malware, ransomware, phishing and data breaches. As we’ve incorporated more technology within healthcare, our now more-vulnerable systems have seen a rise in cyber threats and attacks.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a strategy report that detailed healthcare’s weaknesses stem from:
🔷Size of health systems 👨💻Technological dependence | ℹ️ Sensitivity of data 🤒 Vulnerability to disruptions |
These weaknesses cause significant issues, with the healthcare system seeing a 93% rise in data breaches from 2018 to 2022.
On the surface, technological disruptions may seem like they should be easy to fix. While they might be (e.g. sometimes you just have to turn your computers off and back on again), they can cause ripple effects with long-term consequences. For instance,
🏥 Patient diversion to other facilities 🔪Delayed procedures | ❌Canceled appointments 😷Inability to provide services/treatments |
These delays and diversions are done in the name of patient safety to ensure that patients appropriate care; however, they can result in devastating consequences, not just in terms of finances and time, but health, wellness and overall trust in the system.
Combating our vulnerabilities is of utmost importance as the industry and patient care standards continue to evolve.
Read more about where we have room for improvement and how we can be more secure in the future.
Related content: An Overview of Legal Implications of AI in Healthcare
Opinion
A Physician Perspective
The guardrails in place in healthcare institutions for cyberattacks is not the greatest. The training that physicians and other healthcare professionals receive is also not standardized, and unfortunately does get glossed over as to check off something on your to-do list.
Given the technological advancements we’re seeing, and the use of AI, patient privacy protection, and healthcare professionals’ ability to protect their patients and themselves becomes more crucial.
One of the barriers with training is that the technology must first be fully understood and used consistently in order for appropriate training and education to take place. Until we get to that point where AI-based tech is ubiquitous we’ll have to tread carefully.
—Sanjana Vig MD,MBA (Anesthesiologist)
In the News
Interesting Articles From Around the Web
To round out the newsletter, here are some other interesting happenings in HealthTech.
🏢 Transitional Coverage for Emerging Technologies (TCET) is the new CMS pathway for getting coverage for devices.
👩 GE Healthcare, in partnership with UCSD, is working on protocols for its MRI machines to improve our understanding, diagnosis and treatment of female health conditions.
👩⚕️ 64% of experienced nurses fear that their jobs will be taken over by AI.
👩💻 Only 29% of tech leaders think our datasets are adequate to appropriately train generative AI programs.