Keeping Devices Secure No Matter Where Healthcare Is Delivered
Healthcare’s approach to managing computing devices has gone through a slow but subtle shift in the past two decades.
With the emergence of laptops and smartphones came the approach of mobile device management, which emphasizes securing the device itself. Mobile device management works by setting strict policies that pertain to a specific device. However, it often requires different policies for different operating systems or service providers, and it falls short when attackers get their hands on a device and can access a corporate network behind a firewall.
The evolution of this approach is unified endpoint management, which understands that these devices come in many shapes and forms. As a result, UEM aims to manage and control devices using a single set of policies for activities such as configuration, access, communication and data encryption. This is meant to improve data security by ensuring that only authorized individuals or applications have the right to access information.
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Modern workspace management goes one step further, recognizing that a computing device is a workstation critical to supporting employees’ day-to-day responsibilities. The value of MWM is magnified in a clinical setting: Physicians and nurses need fast access to sensitive information that’s stored in a separate location, sometimes on-premises but increasingly in the cloud. Requiring clinical staff to manage multiple usernames and passwords causes frustration at the point of care, and delayed decision-making can adversely impact clinical job satisfaction as well as patient outcomes.
Enabling speedy yet secure access for clinical staff is complicated by two core factors of the modern healthcare workspace. Within the hospital, shared workstations are common. Relaxed policies can lead to shared passwords, leaving not just workstations but also clinical applications and sensitive information readily available to attackers.
Individual users may also log on from any number of locations — an outpatient clinic, a specialist’s office or even their own homes — using any number of devices. A nonsecure device, network connection or combination of the two can likewise leave data and apps vulnerable.
