The Joint Commission and the American Hospital Association created a first-of-its-kind program designed to help hospitals and health systems to sustain safe clinical operations during cyber-related technology outages.
The Cyber Resilience Readiness program is a structured, free-to-complete self-assessment tool that emphasizes real-world operational readiness and ensuring patient care can continue safely and effectively when technologies are unavailable, according to a May 4 joint news release from the organizations. The program has lessons from actual ransomware and cyber events that affected hospitals in the U.S. The Joint Commission is also developing a certification pathway for organizations that demonstrate strong clinical continuity and cyber resilience capabilities.
“Digital disruption poses a direct and growing threat to patient safety and clinical care,” Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, president and CEO of The Joint Commission, said in the release. “As cyber criminals become increasingly sophisticated, advanced, and creative, so too must our efforts to thwart the risks — but we are not talking about cyberattacks alone. It is about how to continue operations under any scenario where technology systems might be down for any period of time. Hospitals and healthcare organizations need practical tools to evaluate and strengthen their approach to withstanding these incidents. The new Cyber Resilience Readiness program is designed to help healthcare organizations focus on what matters most: maintaining safe, quality patient care and clinical operations at all times.”
Healthcare and public health are the most frequently targeted sectors of cyberthreats in 2025, with a total of 642 incidents, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Report.
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