Should we treat Medical Device Security as a Public Health Issue?

Cyber security issues related to medical devices should be treated like a public health issue, according to a leading expert on health policy.
Cyber security issues related to medical devices should be treated like a public health issue, according to a leading expert on health policy.

In-brief: The security of medical devices should be addressed as a public health issue says Dr. Dale Nordenberg in a recent interview. 

Should medical device cybersecurity be treated as a critical public health issue? That’s the argument that Dr. Dale Nordenberg makes over at HealthInfoSecurity.com.

“The threat landscape is always evolving, along with the technology landscape. All of this creates increasing complexity and increasing risk,” Nordenberg said in an interview.

That makes the problem a natural fit for the public health community, which is used to addressing complex issues that involve both technical and policy based responses to problems (see also: Ebola).

“The apparatus and the methods for dealing with [medical device cybersecurity] are well-grounded in traditional public health practice,” Nordenberg said.

His comments echo those given at the recent Codemonicon mini conference in Las Vegas and reported by Security Ledger. Nordenberg was part of a panel of experts speaking on the topic of medical device security. He suggested that medical errors linked to software may already be a substantial problem within the U.S. healthcare sector, but that the phenomenon of software induced errors isn’t being measured, as such.

Nordenberg, who is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Medical Device Innovation, Safety & Security Consortium said that technical, healthcare delivery and business issues must be addressed together.

“When we get those three points aligned, we’ll be able to address this in a way that all stakeholders will step up,” he says.

Read more here: Medical Device Security as a Public Health Issue

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