Formed by the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, a task force established to share cybersecurity information between federal government and private industry representatives has released its “Report on Improving Cybersecurity in the Health Care Industry.” They presented six major action items for Congress, the Department of Health and Human Services, other government agencies and private industry.

The Report organized its recommendations under six Imperatives:

• Define and streamline leadership, governance, and expectations for health care industry cybersecurity;
• Increase the security and resilience of medical devices and health IT;
• Develop the health care workforce capacity necessary to prioritize and ensure cybersecurity awareness and technical capabilities;
• Increase health care industry readiness through improved cybersecurity awareness and education;
• Identify mechanisms to protect research and development efforts and intellectual property from attacks or exposure; and
• Improve information sharing of industry threats, weaknesses, and mitigations.

In a recent alert, we evaluated the action items and draft recommendations prepared by the Task Force, = and discuss how the Trump administration will react to these new proposals.

Read our review of the Health Care Cybersecurity Task Force Report