Two-thirds of hospital IT teams are strained or in constant “firefighting” mode, according to a new report — and even fully staffed departments aren’t immune.
The Aug. 18 report from networking-as-a-service provider Nile surveyed more than 300 IT leaders, C-suite executives and network and security practitioners across the global healthcare sector.
Only 18% of respondents say they’re comfortably managing network operations, while 66% describe their teams as strained or firefighting. About 21% admitted to being “critically understaffed and at risk of burnout.” Notably, the report found that adequate staffing alone doesn’t solve the problem — fully staffed teams reported the same level of constant firefighting, pointing to network complexity as the deeper issue.
Cybersecurity and ransomware ranked as the top network challenge, cited by 27% of respondents, ahead of staffing shortages and lack of expertise (23%), rising operational and compliance costs (20%), and aging or fragmented infrastructure (15%). About 85% of healthcare organizations experience network or security disruptions frequently, with 38% affected at least weekly — disruptions that directly touch EHR access, patient monitoring and imaging workflows.
Confidence in incident response is also low. Only 20% of organizations say they’re confident their network can contain a cyber incident across its mix of IoT, medical, clinician and guest devices, while about 6 in 10 (61%) are not confident or only slightly confident in that ability. Zero Trust adoption also lags, with just 38% reporting partial or full implementation.
