While every industry has a different tolerance for risk, there are also different types of risk to consider. When asked what challenges are unique to healthcare IT, Duke University Health System CISO Chuck Kessler says the biggest differentiation between a healthcare organization and a bank, for example, is that in healthcare it’s ultimately about saving lives.

In a recent interview in HealthcareIT News, the 25-year IT veteran described the difficulty of reducing risk is making decisions that can slow providers down, like requiring an extra login or using multi-factor authentication. Designing access controls for Electronic Health Records (EHR) platforms might require restricting what information is available for certain user roles.

“The difference in healthcare,” said Kessler, “is you have to balance the need to take care of patients with the need for security control.”

With bandwidth-intensive applications such as EHR and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) placing greater capacity and availability demands on the network, healthcare IT groups have a high bar. And that’s before factoring in strict privacy and regulatory requirements such as complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

Uplogix for Healthcare IT Networks

Uplogix provides healthcare IT organizations with a solution that simplifies the management of a widely distributed and complex IT infrastructure, reduces IT support costs, maintains high network availability and service levels, and constantly enforces security and compliance auditing requirements. Uplogix Local Managers (LMs) collocate with network devices and servers to provide out-of-band, non-stop secure management and control, eliminating time-consuming and expensive tech support trips to remote locations to make routine network changes and repairs. From the Uplogix Control Center, administrators can centrally manage all network devices and systems connected to Uplogix LMs via an easy-to-use, web-based interface.

With an expanding portfolio of healthcare providers including the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center (Case Study), Uplogix is part of delivering the strong, healthy and secure networks that are the prescription for today’s healthcare IT groups. For more information, visit the Healthcare Network Infrastructure page on the Uplogix website.