IT Support and Solutions That Underpin the Health of Your Organization
Every type of healthcare organization—hospital, outpatient practice, healthcare agency, or business associate—needs secure, reliable IT services to protect and quickly access patients’ sensitive data. In addition, healthcare tech platforms need to account for stringent regulatory and industry compliance standards.
As a technology solutions partner, Cooperative Systems takes those requirements into account. We offer the systems support and solutions you need, along with the peace of mind of knowing that your organization and systems are protected; that your proprietary information and invaluable data are covered.
A Proactive, Responsive IT Partner
At Cooperative Systems, we take the time to thoroughly understand your operation and your pain points. We understand the healthcare landscape, including in-depth experience with the regulatory and compliance issues you face. With that in mind, we take a collaborative, immersive approach to developing a Technology Optimization Roadmap that takes your current needs into account and scales with you as your organization grows and changes. And we stay with you, not just as an advisor, but as a technology partner truly invested in your success.
As a technology partner, Cooperative Systems:
Complete IT Coverage with NOAH
Cooperative Systems’ NOAH (Network Observation and Health) Complete Care next-generation managed IT Services platform offers your organization access to constant, up-to-date technology, and comprehensive support.
From enhanced cybersecurity, reduced risk, and mission-critical data and assets protection to business continuity, minimized downtime, and improved regulatory compliance, Cooperative Systems works to help increase profitability and productivity by positioning your technology to drive your business success.
Yes. Any system (physical, verbal and electronic) that stores or transfers PHI data must be compliant. When it comes to telecom and unified communications systems, there are multiple ways PHI is stored and transferred electronically rendering it e-PHI also protected under HIPAA. These include, Caller ID information, call recording, voicemail, voicemail transcription, SMS (text), and Fax to email. It’s vital that you verify with your telecom vendor and/or managed IT Services partner that these systems are compliant with HIPAA to keep your e-PHI secure.
Unfortunately, Healthcare data breaches cost the most when compared to other industries. Once a practice or provider experiences a breach, the direct costs add up fast and include establishing a crisis management team with a cybersecurity remediation company or partner to expel the intruders and re-secure the entire IT infrastructure and environment. Most practices also need to set up or hire a PR Team to managed brand reputation damage and respond to patients. Additional costs are operational downtime, fines, and or legal ramifications.
According to IBM Security’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021, “Data breach costs rose from $3.86 million to $4.24 million, the highest average total cost in the history of this report. Costs were significantly lower for some of organizations with a more mature security posture, and higher for organizations that lagged in areas such as security AI and automation, zero trust and cloud security.”
Data breaches are extremely expensive. You’ll save money in the long term by putting robust, enhanced cybersecurity measures in place to defend your practice.
In the healthcare industry, when a network goes down unexpectedly there could be some major consequences. The first being, patient care. Some patients relay on technology fueled treatments to manage their conditions. Depending on the nature of their illness, an unplanned outage could be lift threatening.
Another major consequence is negatively impacting the Electronic Health Record (EHR) line of business application. This could severely disrupt or halt daily operations and patient reporting leading to temporary or even permanent data loss.
The newest cybersecurity technologies that will keep your practice safe include multi-factor authentication (MFA), staff phish email trainings, endpoint detection and response (EDR), Security information and event management (SIEM) and more.
EDR, in particular, stands out as a top priority investment. Compared to traditional security measures such as tradition antivirus software, EDR provides enhanced visibility into endpoints (computers, laptops, mobile devices, etc.) and also allows for a quicker response time should suspicious activities be detected. In addition, EDR can detect and prevent against lateral movements within your practice's network infrastructure, effectively shutting down potentially risky or unusual communications before they become an issue.
SIEM is another important component to any cybersecurity program. According to Fortinet, “Protecting today's healthcare networks requires pulling data from a number of different sources in real time. SIEM solutions allow organizations to move data that traditionally lives in a silo to a centralized location where all the threat data from across the network can be viewed through a single lens. SIEM solutions convert each piece of information into a single event and then input it into an automated analytics engine so real-time action can be taken.”
Again, due to the constantly evolving nature of today’s cyber threat environment, any tool that provides real time monitoring and reporting is vital to keeping your practice safe.