TransForm was recently selected to be the provincial delivery partner for the Erie St. Clair region in establishing a regional security operations centre (RSOC). The health system has been on heightened alert due to various cyber security threats for quite some time now. This became particularly evident when the east coast health system was crippled due to a cyber security incident, resulting in the health system resorting to paper charting, creating a risk to patient safety. After this incident, the Ministry accelerated the establishment of a Central Security Operations Centre (CSOC) that would serve as the nucleus for the province to more efficiently manage any cyber security threats and our capabilities to proactively prepare and prevent any negative incidents. The Ministry has acknowledged that cyber security is a challenge that all organizations have to address and as we collectively progress towards digital transformation, our cyber risks grow.
Currently in a two-year pilot phase, TransForm was selected as one of only six selected sites within the province to establish a common and equitable infrastructure with cyber security experts that will also feed data from our health system providers to the CSOC to efficiently address any security issues on behalf of all the organizations. This not only includes our hospitals, but other organizations such as Family Health Teams (FHT) and Community Health Centres (CHC) in partnership with our regional Ontario Health Teams (OHTs). An expert team of project managers, privacy and security experts and engagement coordinators will be mobilized to work with the Erie St. Clair LHIN health service providers, including physician offices to assist in completing privacy and security assessments to ensure the organizations are properly equipped with the infrastructure and security required to protect their networks. If there are any security technology gaps found, the RSOC team will be able to provide recommendations to remediate and where possible, use regional assets to cost effectively deliver services and solutions.
People are also a key part of the cyber security journey. TransForm is partnering with the ehealth Centre of Excellence, to reach out to community health care providers and support education, assessment, and cyber security capabilities.
“The goal of this initiative is to develop a robust road map to maintain this level of prevention and protection which can help scale to the rest of the province,” says TransForm’s Mark Loffhagen, Senior Privacy and Security Analyst. Loffhagen also shares that TransForm is partnering with London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) to expedite and promote the scalability of the model being created. “TransForm’s strength is its ability to manage and help our region develop a more mature state of privacy and security so we are all protected, no matter how large or small the organization is.”
To kick off this initiative for Erie St. Clair, the goal is to have maturity assessments completed for all five hospitals. Next will be Hospice Windsor-Essex, followed by other OHT members. “The Ministry of Health has provided a gold standard for privacy and security and our goal is to achieve that standard for the region in the next two years, followed by scaling the model to other regions,” says Mazen Joukhadar, Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer, TransForm Shared Service Organization. “Digital health advancement is a key enabler to improve health care outcomes and delivery of patient care. Cyber threats are real, the impacts are significant, and a regional model is an effective model to understand and assist our community be better prepared. TransForm is very well positioned to support and achieve the RSOC vision.”
Want to know more? Please reach out to Mark Loffhagen, Senior Privacy and Security Analyst.
