Censinet, AHA, KLAS Partner On Healthcare Cybersecurity Benchmarking Study

Healthcare risk management solutions company Censinet, along with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and KLAS Research, announced plans to conduct “The Healthcare Cybersecurity Benchmarking Study.”  

The study is currently enrolling hospital and health system participants and aims to assess key operational cyber metrics, cyber maturity, and coverage of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF), and Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices (HICP).

The anonymized, aggregated datasets will ideally provide participating healthcare organizations with much-needed benchmarking data and insight into key cybersecurity metrics across the sector.

“With cyber risk now representing significant enterprise risk to hospitals and health systems, the time has never been more critical to elevate our industry’s cyber strength, maturity, and resilience,” John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, at the AHA stated in the announcement.

“The Healthcare Cybersecurity Benchmarking Study brings all of us together to accomplish this objective and, like a rising tide, will help all providers succeed in reducing enterprise risk and protecting patient safety.”

Participating organizations will also be granted access to Censinet’s NIST CSF and HICP benchmarking muddles through March 2023, as well as guidance to address critical security gaps and specific benchmarks to help organizations with resource allocation.

Several health system sponsors are leading efforts to promote the study, including Mass General Brigham, Intermountain Healthcare, Cedars-Sinai, Baptist Health, Dayton Children’s, Fairview Health Services, Hartford HealthCare, and Marshfield Clinic Health System.

“The Healthcare Cybersecurity Benchmarking Study is the first benchmarking initiative in healthcare to combine key organizational indicators, NIST CSF, and HICP for comprehensive provider self-evaluation and peer comparison,” said Censinet CEO and founder Ed Gaudet.

“We’re honored to come together with leading industry partners like the AHA and KLAS Research, as well as leading health system sponsors, to advance this Study with unprecedented collaboration and transparency, making our industry truly ‘stronger together’ against cyber threats.”

As the healthcare sector continues to grapple with an ever-changing cyber threat landscape, benchmarking data could provide useful insights into sector-wide cybersecurity strengths and weaknesses.