About the Guide
“Strategies for Cyber Preparedness in Health Care” guides hospitals and health systems in elevating cybersecurity beyond a technical challenge and instead as a core, enterprise-level imperative that touches every aspect of operations.
Cyberthreats to health care are growing in frequency and impact. Preparing for and managing cybersecurity risks will help safeguard operations, sensitive data and patient care.
Health care leaders and teams can use this resource to better position their organizations to manage disruption, safeguard patients and ensure continuity of care when cyber incidents occur.
Five Key Areas for Action
Action strategies in this resource are organized across five key areas, designed to help leaders and teams build resilient, coordinated and patient-centered cyber preparedness capabilities.
Prioritize Cybersecurity as an Organizational Imperative
In today’s threat environment, effective cybersecurity is essential to protect the enterprise, patient care, operational integrity and organizational trust. To meet this challenge, hospitals and health systems must move beyond viewing cybersecurity as a purely technical issue and instead treat it as a core element of enterprise risk management.
Cultivate a Trained and Cyber-Aware Workforce
Hospitals and health systems can strengthen cyber resilience by cultivating a workforce that is prepared, vigilant and capable of responding swiftly to cyberthreats. Building such a proactive culture requires equipping individuals and teams with the appropriate tools, training and response frameworks to protect patient care and hospital and health system operations.
Plan for Clinical Continuity in the Event of a Cyber Incident
Ensuring continuity of clinical care during a cyberattack is critical to protecting patient safety and maintaining trust with the community. Hospitals and health systems should plan for sustained downtime by developing and regularly testing procedures, engaging clinical leadership, and reinforcing backup and communication capabilities. External dependencies also should be identified and accounted for.
Assess and Strengthen Third-Party Risk Management
Third-party vendors play a critical role in hospital and health systems operations, but they also introduce cybersecurity risks. To strengthen organizational resilience, hospitals and health systems should assess and enhance their third-party risk management program with a comprehensive, risk-based approach.
Prepare for Regional Implications of a Cyberattack
Cyberattacks rarely remain isolated to a single facility. Instead, such attacks can ripple across regions by affecting shared vendors, infrastructure and systems. Hospitals and health systems must plan not only for internal disruptions but also for broader regional impacts that may threaten care delivery, emergency response and coordination across the health care ecosystem.
About CLEAR
Through the CLEAR — Convening Leaders for Emergency and Response — initiative, the AHA is dedicated to strengthening hospitals’ and health systems’ abilities to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies and disasters. The CLEAR initiative is a funded partnership between AHA’s Health Research & Educational Trust and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Presented as part of Cooperative Agreement HITEP210047, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR). The Health Research & Educational Trust, an American Hospital Association 501(c)(3) nonprofit subsidiary, is a proud partner of this Cooperative Agreement. The contents of this webpage are solely the responsibility of the Health Research & Educational Trust and do not necessarily represent the official policies or views of the Department of Health and Human Services or of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. Further, any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organizations does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.