Halifax Health Vice President / CIO Tom Stafford views the constant effort needed to defend against cybersecurity threats as a war.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got the bad guys trying to get to our data,” Stafford said Tuesday at HIMSS19 in Orlando, Fla. “And so we have to do novel things and layer technology to make sure we’re protecting our patients’ information.”

Healthcare is an especially big target because it represents “low-hanging fruit,” Stafford said. Patient data not only is plentiful, it’s also timeless, making it much more valuable for hackers.

Tom Stafford, may represent the larger healthcare providers, but the small and mid-sized providers have a tougher problem facing them. They have less staff, fewer tools, and smaller budgets. So the picture he paints is true for all of us.

Organizations must focus on environmental awareness, staff education and more, Halifax Health’s Tom Stafford says.

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Originally published in HealthTechMagazine.net and written by Dan Bowman

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