Dr. Robert Wah, Global Chief Medical Officer, CSC and President, AMA, on Cybersecurity

Robert Wah, MD, Global Chief Medical Officer, CSC and President, American Medical Association, and Karl West, Chief Information Security Officer and Assistant VP, Information Systems, Intermountain Healthcare. The healthcare industry has always been very concerned about privacy, but there is a need to ramp it up.  Currently the street value of a stolen health record is much greater than a stolen credit card.  This means the criminals are “re-targeting” and aiming for stealing the more lucrative health records.  The result is we are in an arms race between criminals and those trusted to protect health information.  The risks to a healthcare entity are many; financial, trust and most importantly, reputation.  Healthcare must use “industrial strength” cybersecurity to protect health information.  We should transfer cybersecurity learnings from other industries to securing the data we use and generate in the care of patients.  Patients have entrusted their doctors and hospitals with some of their most personal and private information and they are nervous about the digital vulnerability.  Dr. Wah and Karl discuss and offer insights on this issue and provide tangible advice in this important area.