Managing Systemic Risk in a Digitized Healthcare Ecosystem

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Healthcare's interconnected ecosystem—spanning patient care, payments, pharmaceuticals, technology, and public health—creates cascading cybersecurity risks. A single ransomware attack on one supplier can shut down nationwide healthcare delivery, compromising patient data, payment systems, and medical devices.

To address this vulnerability, the Health Sector Coordinating Cybersecurity Working Group released the Sector Mapping and Risk Management Toolkit (SMART) in October. SMART provides actionable guidance for managing systemic risks and critical dependencies across health systems. It empowers organizations to demand secure products and high-availability services from suppliers, driving improved security standards ecosystem-wide. When customer leverage is insufficient to influence third-party security, SMART helps organizations anticipate incidents and develop backup plans.