Strategies for addressing healthcare IT cybersecurity organizational resourcing
Finding IT professionals to fill open positions is reaching critical levels for many organizations. In fact, 63% of respondents to an ISACA report shared they had unfilled cybersecurity positions. Almost the same percentage–62%–stated their team was understaffed, taking more than six months to fill open positions.
In healthcare, those vacancies are often magnified by budget limitations, and changing requirements from cyber insurance providers and regulatory bodies.
Salary requirements have also risen considerably over the past few years. While remote work options have expanded the available workforce pool, it’s also made it more difficult and costly for hospitals and health systems in remote areas to compete with the larger organizations.
As the cybersecurity talent shortage continues, higher salaries for less experienced professionals have become a reality. Over time this can create mentorship challenges, and limit less experienced individuals’ ability to learn how to maintain command and control during an incident. Being shorthanded or inexperienced is not ideal in any situation, especially during a cyber incident.
All of these aspects lead healthcare organizations with the tough decision of whether to keep their cybersecurity program in-house, or to outsource some (or all) of the necessary services to a managed security service provider (MSSP). But even those using staffing agencies to help find qualified individuals with cybersecurity expertise and experience working within a healthcare setting find that it can take months to fill high-priority positions.
Leveraging expertise on-demand services is one way to tackle healthcare cybersecurity staffing shortages in an efficient, and cost-effective way.
Here are a few factors to consider when evaluating an MSSP’s expertise on-demand services your healthcare organization:
- The total level of effort and cost in finding people. A specialized firm can not only simplify the process of finding cybersecurity professionals with healthcare expertise, but they also help spread the cost of hiring them.
- Access to senior-level cybersecurity professionals. MSSPs tend to be an attractive employer for many cybersecurity professionals, especially those with more senior-level experience. One of the reasons is that they’re likely to have more advancement and research opportunities than they would in a hospital setting.
- Ever-changing technologies and processes. It can be challenging for healthcare IT teams to stay current on the consistently evolving tools and tech required for a proficient cybersecurity program. Cybersecurity experts within an MSSP are able to leverage more resources and insights from their counterparts to provide advanced insights and streamlined processes for their healthcare clients.
Learn how a leading health system leverages expertise on-demand services to transform how they manage their cybersecurity program.