It’s one thing to prepare for a disaster you know is coming, like a hurricane, but COVID-19 hit with a velocity that took many security and IT leaders in the United States by surprise. Overnight almost, the pandemic forced healthcare organizations to send thousands of employees home to work remotely, ramp up telehealth, and stand up temporary hospitals. Mt Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach had the tools and infrastructure in place to accommodate the change, but the pandemic’s velocity still stressed the security team, said Mauricio Angee, the organization’s AVP and CISO during the early days of the pandemic.
Unlike other countries that have dealt with SARS, MERS, H1NI, most healthcare organization in the United States don’t have experience in “flipping a switch” to make big changes when a pandemic strikes.
In this session, Mauricio joins Penn Medicine VP John Donohue to discuss what COVID-19 taught them about disaster preparedness and business continuity.
Key discussion points
- How to make sure clinical systems stay up and running securely – and what to do if they go down.
- Organizational communication strategy for security and IT
- Best practices for maintaining compliance in a crisis
- Adding vendor muscle to accommodate increased demand for services and to cover for ill security and IT staff.
- Returning to normalcy
By looking closely at how security and IT teams responded to COVID, healthcare organizations will be in a much better place to manage the next pandemic.
