After another turbulent year in healthcare cybersecurity, many organizations expect to increase their budgets to strengthen their defenses.
That’s according to the 2024 HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Survey report, released last month: 52% of respondents said that their overall IT budgets would go up from 2024 to 2025. Among health systems with specific cybersecurity allocations within that budget, 55% expected a targeted increase, with a focus on improving tools, policies or staffing.
It’s clear why cybersecurity is a highlighted issue at the 2025 HIMSS global conference and expo in Las Vegas. The second keynote address Wednesday featured former National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, a retired Army general who is also the founding director of Vanderbilt University’s Institute of National Security.
He shared his experience helping to secure the work of the Department of Health and Human Services during Operation Warp Speed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a collaborative effort that inspired new ways to exchange information.
“This is what I learned at Operation Warp Speed: Let’s have a radical partnership, let’s apply it to a problem that is almost unsolvable and let’s figure out how we start to have outcomes. These are exactly the same procedures we need to do with regard to ransomware,” he said, such as developing a center to rapidly provide threat information for rural health systems.
And as artificial intelligence comes to the fore, Nakasone said, there should be a more systematic approach that includes fostering interest in data science, machine learning and quantum computing among younger generations. We are in this era’s “Sputnik moment,” he said.
The other education sessions of the day focused on cybersecurity also discussed talent development and partnerships as a way to improve healthcare’s long-term strategy.
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Teta Alim