Enhancing Security Measures for Healthcare Supply Chains: Focus on the Top Three Priorities
In the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare, the importance of maintaining a robust and secure supply chain cannot be overstated. The integration of technology and automation is playing a crucial role in this regard, as healthcare organizations adopt solutions for real-time supply chain visibility and third-party risk management.
Ongoing reviews of vendors are essential due to their dynamic nature. Regular assessments help ensure that suppliers remain compliant with all requirements, aiding in the delivery of care that is both efficient and secure.
One of the key strategies in this approach involves integrating Internet of Things (IoT) technology. By implementing RFID tags, GPS trackers, and environmental sensors, medical supplies, equipment, and pharmaceuticals can be tracked in real-time across multiple supply chain layers. This improved visibility into location, condition, and status helps prevent delays or stock issues that could impact patient care.
Deploying AI and machine learning-based cloud supply chain solutions is another significant step. These tools consolidate data from diverse sources into centralized dashboards, enhancing demand forecasting, inventory visibility, and risk detection. They enable faster, smarter decision-making and automated workflows in procure-to-pay processes, reducing errors and labor costs.
Implementing automated third-party risk management platforms is equally important. These tools continuously monitor vendor security posture, flag vulnerabilities, and issue alerts on incidents such as breaches or ransomware attacks. They support ongoing assessments with standardized questionnaires and risk-based vendor tiering for prioritization.
Extending visibility beyond direct vendors to fourth parties is also crucial. Solutions like SecurityScorecard’s Supply Chain Detection and Response provide continuous monitoring of extended vendor ecosystems, identifying threats early, and supporting rapid breach response and regulatory compliance.
Balancing automation with human oversight is key to interpreting complex risk scenarios, guiding decision-making, configuring rules, and facilitating effective incident response.
The importance of cybersecurity in this context cannot be understated. A cybersecurity incident or disruption at any vendor can degrade a health system's ability to deliver care. Supply chain attacks on vendors and third-party suppliers can grant malicious actors access to healthcare organizations' networked systems.
Risk assessment should start during the initial evaluation of a potential partner, with security and compliance teams assessing if the vendor or partner meets the institution's cybersecurity and compliance requirements. Legal and compliance officers help create contract documents and policies that align vendor compliance with healthcare requirements, such as HIPAA.
Healthcare organizations face risks from various types of supply chain vendors, including food suppliers, software makers, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and day-to-day medical supply sellers. To mitigate supply chain risk, healthcare organizations must know all their vendors, establish a third-party risk management program, and conduct regular reviews to ensure vendor compliance.
CrowdStrike's 2022 Global Threat Report provides valuable insights into the current state of cybersecurity and the challenges in stopping breaches. If a vendor cannot meet the organization's cybersecurity and compliance requirements, the relationship should not proceed unless there is a compelling reason that outweighs the associated risk.
Recent incidents underscore the importance of these measures. In 2017, a provider of artificial intelligence solutions was attacked twice, victim of NotPetya, a global wiper malware attack, which impacted the systems used by the provider's healthcare customers. In 2020, a cloud software company suffered a ransomware attack that exposed patient and donor information for millions of people. A ransomware attack against a workforce management company in December 2021 disrupted payroll processes and employee scheduling at healthcare facilities across the U.S., particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic's Omicron variant surge.
Finance departments can help identify all third-party partners that may be introducing risk, as they pay all invoices. The organization's senior executive level should be responsible for accepting the risk for the organization when exceptions are made. Institutions must focus on understanding the risks associated with sharing data with vendors. Developing a well-managed third-party risk management program may require detective work, including identifying technology or application partners that might expose an organization to third-party risk.
By adopting these strategies, healthcare organizations can create an integrated system that provides continuous, real-time insight into supply chain operations and third-party security risks, allowing proactive management and improved resilience.
- The integration of technology and automation in healthcare extends to cybersecurity, as the importance of maintaining a secure supply chain cannot be understated.
- Implementing automated third-party risk management platforms is crucial for monitoring vendor security posture, especially in data-and-cloud-computing solutions and general-news regarding cybersecurity breaches.
- In the health-and-wellness sector, technology is not only used for improving health care delivery but also for managing risks associated with medical-conditions, such as vendors' compliance with cybersecurity and healthcare requirements.
- Technology and automation play significant roles in health-and-wellness, crime-and-justice, and general-news sectors by providing solutions for real-time visibility, demand forecasting, and risk detection, enabling proactive management and improved resilience.
