Healthcare organizations face immense pressure today. Staffing shortages, increasing regulatory demands, and rising operational costs are pushing providers to their limits. On top of these challenges, IT systems are constantly at risk from cyberattacks, natural disasters, and system failures. A disruption to your IT network doesnโt just jeopardize compliance and your facilityโs reputationโit can also put patient lives at risk.
Thatโs why building resilient IT systems is critical. Here are five strategies to achieve just that, helping you withstand crises and keeping your organization running smoothly.
Cybersecurity – Protecting Your Organization in the Age of AI
With the advancements in AI the past few years, cybersecurity has never been more critical. Threats are evolving rapidly. Deepfakes, social engineering attacks, and phishing schemes make it increasingly difficult to identify risks. A single mistake can cause widespread consequences throughout your organization, such as disrupted patient care, compromised sensitive data, and long-lasting reputational damage.
To mitigate these risks, healthcare organizations must implement advanced cybersecurity measures. If you read our recent article 4 Lessons from the Biggest Healthcare Breach in American History, youโre already familiar with some of the tools and strategies available. These include multi-factor authentication, establishing a baseline of cybersecurity best practices, and protecting critical vulnerabilities.
Regularly updating and patching software is also essential, as it closes security gaps attackers might exploit. In a digital-first world, protecting electronic health records and ensuring system uptime are non-negotiable. Robust cybersecurity measures are not just about defenseโtheyโre about maintaining continuity of care, even in the face of looming threats.
Business Continuity Plans – Are You Prepared for Worst Case Scenarios?
Cyberattacks arenโt the only crises your organization could face. What if a fire, earthquake, or power outage occurs? How will you respond? In a healthcare setting, disruptions like these can have serious consequences. Prolonged downtime could lead to financial losses, damage your organizationโs reputation, or even put patientsโ lives at risk. This is why a robust business continuity plan is essential.
A business continuity plan mitigates risks during disasters, providing a comprehensive strategy to maintain critical operations both during and after the disruption. It accounts for every moving part. Which includes identifying essential services, assigning responsibilities, and detailing recovery processes, all in an effort to minimize the impact on patients and staff.
When so much of your operationsโand your patientsโ well-beingโdepend on IT systems, preparation for worst-case scenarios is vital. A business continuity plan ensures youโre ready to navigate the unexpected.
Data Backup – The Right Way to Backup Data
What would happen if your data disappeared? Simply vanished. Itโs a sobering question, but one every healthcare organization must answer. Cyberattacks, power outages, or hardware failures can wipe out critical information in an instant. Without proper data backup systems in place, recovery may be impossible.
Thatโs where data backups come in. They ensure patient records, billing information, and operational data are recoverable, even in worst-case scenarios. However, backing up your data isnโt a one-time affair that can be forgotten after the first backup is complete. To truly protect it, backups must be up-to-date, secure, and readily accessible.
This means implementing regularly scheduled backups and routinely testing them, utilizing secure offsite storage, and leveraging cloud-based solutions for swift recovery. These measures help minimize downtime and maintain continuity of care, all while ensuring you have the most up-to-date backup when you need it.
Redundant Systems – Why Theyโre Vital to Your Organization
Just like your data needs backup, so do your IT systems. Redundant systems are the fail-safes. They keep your operations running smoothly, even when primary systems encounter unexpected failures. Whether itโs a server crash, network outage, or hardware failure, backup systems ensure that critical healthcare functions continue without disruption.
Redundancy can take many forms. For example, duplicate servers in separate locations protect your operations against localized disasters, while load balancers evenly distribute workloads to prevent system overloads. Even redundant power supplies can help. During an outage, they may be the only thing keeping life-saving equipment operational.
In healthcare, downtime isnโt just an inconvenience, it can put lives at risk. Redundant systems provide the reliability and resilience needed to maintain uninterrupted patient care.
Staff Training – More than Just Cybersecurity Training
Bringing it all together, the final (and perhaps most crucial) element of a resilient healthcare IT network is staff training. Cybersecurity training is, of course, an essential component of this, especially as the healthcare industry remains a prime target for cybercriminals. Do your staff know how to recognize phishing attempts or social engineering schemes? Cybersecurity training equips them with the knowledge to identify and mitigate these threats, reducing your odds of a breach.
Human error is another common cause of data loss. For example, an employee might accidentally overwrite a shared document containing updated billing codes, leading to hours of lost work and delays in processing claims. Donโt let this happen to you. Training your team on proper data handling and adherence to system protocols can help prevent these costly errors.
Lastly, training your staff how to act in the event of a disaster should be a key part of your business continuity plan. Do they know how to switch to backup systems or access redundant servers during a system failure? Are they aware of the communication protocols to follow in a crisis? By preparing your team for scenarios like these, theyโll be ready to respond swiftly and confidently, minimizing disruptions and ensuring continuity of patient care when it matters most.
Resilient IT Systems Lay the Foundation for Growth and Stability
While healthcare organizations face pressures from many directions, ensuring the resiliency of your IT systems shouldnโt further complicate your operations. With the right preparation, training, and strategies in place, your IT systems can weather crises. More importantly, your organization can continue to thrive, growing in profitability while protecting its reputation and patientsโ health.
At GeBBS, we take the data security of our clients seriously. And we practice what we preach. We are HITRUST, ISO 27001, and HIPPA compliant, just to name a few. We adhere to all the best practices outlined in this article: training our staff, backing up data and systems, securing them against cyberthreats, and maintaining a robust disaster recovery plan. When you trust us with your revenue cycle management, you gain more than faster claims processing and improved reimbursement ratesโyou gain the peace of mind knowing your data is safe. Contact us today to learn more about our healthcare outsourcing solutions.