HHS Releases Concept Paper to Improve Health Care Sector’s Cyber Posture

The Department of Health and Human Services is working to fortify the health care sector’s cybersecurity.

On Wednesday, the department released a concept paper detailing its cybersecurity strategy for the industry. Based on the Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy, the plan provides four pillars for actions, including collaborating with Congress to develop a support system and incentives that would attract domestic hospitals to improve their cybersecurity, HHS said.

To improve the sector’s cyber posture, the concept paper also calls for voluntary reporting of health care and public health sector cybersecurity performance goals, rolling out a department-wide strategy supporting greater enforcement and accountability and expanding the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response’s coordination role as a “one-stop shop” for health care cybersecurity.

The HHS concept paper is not the first initiative from the agency to address cybersecurity. In October, the department released a collaborative cybersecurity health care toolkit with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The toolkit was designed to protect digital technologies used to store patient and medical information.

It is also exploring the idea of launching a program management office support to help HHS components adopt zero trust strategies.