By Gilda D’Incerti, CEO and Founder, PQE
LinkedIn: Gilda D’Incerti
LinkedIn: PQE Group
Healthcare cybersecurity has typically been viewed as a technical responsibility, with security teams focused on protecting networks, securing electronic health records, and responding to ransomware incidents. Now, that framing is no longer sufficient.
Cybersecurity has crossed a critical threshold in healthcare. It is increasingly recognized as a governance and compliance issue that directly affects operational continuity, patient safety, and regulatory oversight. Cyber resilience is now measured by a healthcare organization’s protection of clinical operations, system integrity, and continuity during disruptions, not just IT controls.
Cybersecurity Moves Into the Regulatory Spotlight
Healthcare has long been one of the most frequently targeted sectors for cyberattacks. Digital environments that connect electronic health records, imaging systems, pharmacy systems, billing platforms, and medical devices have created a digital dependency and new vulnerabilities. In 2024, an estimated 67% of healthcare organizations experienced ransomware attacks. These data underscore the scale of the threat facing the sector.
This digital dependency has created new vulnerabilities. In 2024, an estimated 67 percent of healthcare organizations experienced ransomware attacks, highlighting the scale of the threat facing the sector. Recent cyber incidents show that healthcare cybersecurity failures have board-level operational and regulatory impacts. In 2026, a ransomware attack forced the University of Mississippi Medical Center to close 35 outpatient clinics, cancel appointments, and delay procedures during system restoration. The attack compromised the medical center’s systems, including its electronic health records platform Epic and its IT network.
In 2024, a ransomware attack on Ascension disrupted electronic health records in multiple hospitals, forcing clinicians to use manual charting and delaying surgeries and care. According to the 2025 Ponemon Healthcare Cybersecurity Report, 72 percent of healthcare organizations report delays in patient care or longer hospital stays following cyberattacks.
The operational consequences of these attacks are increasingly visible. Electronic health records, imaging platforms, medication records, and patient intake tools may all be affected simultaneously, forcing hospitals to revert to manual processes that are slower and more prone to error. Surveys of healthcare security leaders show that 72% of organizations experiencing cyber incidents reported delays in patient care or longer hospital stays because of system disruptions. This operational disruption is one reason cybersecurity is moving into the broader healthcare regulatory conversation.
From Data Breach to Care Disruption
Cybersecurity policies in healthcare once focused primarily on protecting patient information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), but the current threat environment extends beyond privacy risks. Ransomware attacks now frequently target operational systems rather than databases alone. When attackers encrypt or disable clinical infrastructure, the consequences extend across care delivery, revenue cycle operations, and patient access to services.
The scale of disruption became clear during the 2024 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a major healthcare technology platform that processes claims and payment transactions across the United States. The breach ultimately exposed sensitive data affecting nearly 192.7 million individuals and disrupted claims processing for providers nationwide. That single event was a sea change for the sector, and many similar events followed (and continue to this day). The Change Healthcare breach, for example, revealed how deeply dependent the industry has become on interconnected digital platforms. When attackers disable clinical infrastructure, the consequences spread from care delivery to revenue cycle operations and patient access services.
The Ascension 2024 ransomware attack delayed surgeries and forced clinicians to use paper-based workflows. These disruptions reveal real consequences for patient care and operations.
Cyber Incidents Are Operational Events
Cyber incidents are also expensive and time-consuming to resolve. Across the healthcare sector, ransomware attacks have resulted in an average of 17 days of operational downtime and estimated daily losses of approximately $1.9 million during recovery.
Disruptions usually extend beyond the technical recovery of IT systems. Organizations must restore data and system functionality and begin the long road toward rebuilding trust in clinical workflows before operations can fully resume. In healthcare, where digital systems support nearly every stage of patient care, this recovery process can take weeks. That reality is changing how healthcare leaders view cyber risk.
Cybersecurity as a Board-Level Issue
Because cyber incidents now affect clinical operations and organizational resilience, cybersecurity governance, awareness, and planning are moving to the executive and board levels. Health system leaders are now considering questions that extend beyond traditional IT security metrics, such as: Can patient care continue safely if clinical systems become unavailable? Are incident response plans co-mingled with clinical operations and compliance teams? Does leadership have clear visibility into cybersecurity readiness and risk exposure beyond the talking points?
These questions reflect a broader shift in how healthcare organizations govern digital infrastructure, and cybersecurity now focuses on protecting information systems and ensuring care continuity.
Do Healthcare Organizations Underestimate Cyber Risk?
Even as awareness of this challenge surges, many health systems treat cybersecurity primarily as a technical discipline rather than a core operational and compliance risk and underestimate its importance. This gap appears in several areas:
- limited integration between cybersecurity and enterprise risk management
- insufficient planning for clinical disruption during cyber incidents
- fragmented governance between IT, compliance, and patient safety teams
- limited board visibility into cyber readiness
At the same time, U.S. healthcare continues to report hundreds of data breaches annually, affecting millions of patient records. As the threat environment grows more complex, organizations must treat cybersecurity readiness as a strategic responsibility rather than a technical afterthought.
Building Cyber Resilience Across the Healthcare Enterprise
Healthcare organizations can strengthen resilience by integrating cybersecurity into broader governance and compliance frameworks, including several actions:
- aligning cybersecurity oversight with enterprise risk management
- conducting resilience testing for critical clinical systems
- strengthening vendor and supply chain risk management
- integrating incident response planning with clinical operations
- increasing board-level visibility into cyber risk metrics
The goal is not to prevent cyber incidents but to ensure healthcare organizations can maintain safe, reliable care delivery during disruptions.
A New Reality for Healthcare Leadership
Digital systems now support nearly every aspect of modern healthcare. Electronic records, telehealth platforms, diagnostic systems, and connected medical devices are essential to care delivery. As healthcare’s digital infrastructure expands, cybersecurity has become inseparable from organizational governance and regulatory readiness.
Organizations that continue to treat cybersecurity purely as an IT responsibility may struggle to manage the operational and compliance risks associated with cyber incidents. Integrate cybersecurity into enterprise leadership, regulatory strategy, and patient safety planning now to ensure your organization can successfully navigate an increasingly complex threat landscape.
Cybersecurity is no longer simply about protecting information. The goal is to protect the continuity and integrity of care itself.