The Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force released its improvement report June 5, calling on the industry to address a range of concerns.
The 21-member task force — which HHS established in response to the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 — held public meetings and consulted with experts about the state of cybersecurity in the healthcare industry. In its report, the task force suggests six key imperatives the industry should implement and cites more than 100 recommendations along the way.
Here are five notes on one of the task force's recommendations, which suggested healthcare stakeholders take inspiration from "Cash for Clunkers."
1. One imperative the task force cited was increasing the security and resilience of medical devices and health IT, with a particular emphasis on phasing out insecure legacy systems.
2. To encourage healthcare organizations to safely trade out legacy technologies, the task force recommended government and industry sectors look to successful incentive models.
3. These incentive models might mirror "Cash for Clunkers," the colloquial name for a 2009 federal program that provided individuals who traded their current car for a more fuel-efficient option with vouchers, according to the task force.
4. The task force also highlighted two other incentive programs: the Montreal Protocol, an international environmental treaty, and the Federal IT Modernization Fund, a program to replace government legacy systems.
Click here to view the full report.