Breaches in Cybersecurity Could Disrupt, Affect Patient Care: Tarun Sondhi

Tarun Sondhi, managing director of cybersecurity at Accenture, discussed how cybersecurity plays a significant role in health care. With more parts of health care being held online and electronically, the potential for data breaches and delays in care makes cybersecurity more important to invest in than ever.

Sondhi explained that the more electronic devices used in health care, the larger the attack surface available to cyberattacks. These potential cyberattacks can not only slow down business operations but also affect patient care, including access to records and scheduling.

Health care is uniquely susceptible to these cyberattacks due to connectivity between different vendors and systems that are used by health care offices daily. These systems hold a lot of valuable information, said Sondhi, that not only involves medical information but also personal information and financial information. Taking the systems offline can put pressure on the health care systems that need them, and it’s a point of leverage for these cyberattackers.

Sondhi emphasized that cybersecurity is critical, as delays in care due to downtime could ultimately cost the lives of patients. These downtime areas could lead to slower access to important information, interruptions in coordination between the clinic and other areas like the imaging center, and workflows could be affected as well. Time matters most when looking for a patient to recover from an illness, he said.

“All of that has to work almost like a tempo on a day-to-day basis, and they depend on these technologies to be able to get that care faster and more effectively,” said Sondhi.

These potential issues should indicate the need for more cybersecurity measures to protect the data of patients and also prevent delays in care should the systems go down due to a successful cyberattack. Cyber risk is patient risk, said Sondhi.