SecureHospitals or how to increase cybersecurity in European hospitals

In the global race for economic competitiveness, the digitization of economies has become key. As a result, cybersecurity has emerged as an increasingly serious problem. In addition, cybercrime has recently shifted from attacking big corporations to other industries such as financial services and specifically healthcare sector.

It has become apparent that the healthcare industry needs to make drastic improvements in cybersecurity and equally importantly it must to raise awareness among its staff and create an IT policy. Meanwhile, around 85 percent of targeted cyber-attacks could be avoided if basic protection protocols were established. Studies suggest that staff are often the most important factor in the leakage of data. Many employees are unaware of the risk posed by information security, which requires raising sufficient awareness among staff. Since cybersecurity is considered an IT problem, most employees are unconcerned by or fail to understand their own role in this context.

Therefore, in order to provide solutions so that health professionals are more aware of how to improve cybersecurity in hospitals and health centres, the European Union has funded an interdisciplinary research and innovation project called SecureHospitals. A European consortium led by the Austrian company INTERSPREAD has been charged with developing initiatives involving raising awareness on cybersecurity in European hospitals over the next two years.

The SecureHospitals consortium works to implement Europe 2020 Strategies in the coordination and support of innovation for staff who work in healthcare environments to improve the processes of information security and data protection procedures.

Cybercrime has recently shifted from attacking big corporations to other industries such as financial services and specifically the healthcare sector

To meet this challenge, the SecureHospitals project aims to create an online community for reporting threats and opportunities and raising awareness among hospital staff. Participants in the consortium are taken from a broad geographical area who represent the accumulation of skills and expertise in the creation of training material, technical developments and legal knowledge on data protection, cybersecurity and computer technology. Over a period of 2 years, the project aims to invite all interested parties concerned with health security in Europe to work together in order to improve training and find common solutions involving cyber-threats to patient data.

The project’s principal activity will be to encourage innovative initiatives on cybersecurity for hospital staff and establish priorities for future action, thus creating a large community of participants to gather and share information. This will take place together with the broad support of interested partners and engagement through online media, and also through direct participation. The first stage of the project includes the development of an online environment which offers free information tools.

SecureHospitals seeks to raise awareness on the risks and also of the existing defences to improve cybersecurity in hospitals

SecureHospitals works for innovation in three areas: Raising awareness among decision-makers and IT professionals in hospitals and healthcare centres in Europe; gathering all the existing information on cyber security in hospitals; and spreading tailormade information to the different healthcare professionals.

The SecureHospitals consortium seeks to help reduce vulnerabilities involving cyber-threats, while raising awareness and patient safety.

SecureHospitals began on 1 December 2018 at INTERSPREAD in Vienna

The SecureHospitals partners held an inaugural meeting in Vienna on 24 and 25 January 2019.

About SecureHospitals

The decision to include the Hospital General de Granollers in projects of this kind is a reflection of the hospital’s commitment to Research and Development, a key component in its strategy, not only due to the prestige such projects bring but also as a sign of the centre’s scientific expertise since there is a high level of demand to participate in them.

The SecureHospitals project is part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program the result of a need for innovative solutions to cyber-security in European hospitals. In conjunction with the company INTERSPREAD, the following institutions and companies are also participating in the project:

Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (The Netherlands), TimeLex CVBA (Belgium), Private Foundation Hospital Asil de Granollers (Spain), COOSS Marche Onlus (Italy), Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Wien Gesundheits- Und Soziale Dienste Gemeinn ützige gmbh (Austria), Johanniter International (Belgium) and European Association for Directors and Providers of long-term care services for the elderly (EDE) ABSL (Czech Republic).

For more information, visit: project.securehospitals.eu