Healthcare is a key growth sector for IT services. Physicians and other medical professionals increasingly depend upon complex applications to collect, process and access patient data, and electronic recordkeeping systems are steadily replacing paper-based apparatuses.
However, the healthcare industry faces a number of challenges on the road to maximizing the value of technology, including keeping costs under control, avoiding vendor fragmentation and fending off the high number of malware campaigns that specifically target its data. Restore on reboot software provides the answer to many of these problems, giving IT managers the ability to wipe out malicious changes and problematic configurations.
This solution keeps IT assets like Computers on Wheels (COWs), doctor/ nurse laptops, patient registration computers and others running smoothly so that healthcare organizations can avoid expensive support operations. More importantly, it enables them to continue providing uninterrupted, high-quality service to patients.
Strong market for devices, services reveals importance of safe IT in healthcare
The burden on healthcare IT departments to ensure top-notch security is considerable in light of rapid growth in sophisticated devices and services. Medical professionals are relying on a wider range of technologies such as biosensors and accelerometers to improve care. The disposable sensor market alone could be worth $6.2 billion by 2018, more than double its current value.
Meanwhile, high-profile acquisitions of telehealth and billing providers reveal the extent to which technology has become integrated with service delivery. Several IT-related industry mergers during the first three quarters of 2013 were worth more than $200 million apiece. Companies are looking for ways to better analyze data and create advanced devices, but doing so will require diligence about security. Reboot to restore software will be key to protecting increasingly interconnected and complex networks from numerous risks such as external attack and insider malfeasance.
Medical devices are a possible weak point in healthcare networks
More specifically, medical devices are common targets for hacking. Networked equipment, defibrillators and pacemakers are examples of assets that have simultaneously improved care delivery while expanding the surface for cyberattacks.
Hospitals and clinics have sought to create easy-to-use IT infrastructure from a variety of components so that they can utilize electronic records and better share information with other institutions. However, many devices and appliances were not designed with security in mind because they originally ran on internal proprietary systems. Now that this equipment is part of a larger healthcare IT setup, it could be a weak link in the security chain.
A restore on reboot solution simplifies management of complex healthcare IT installations. Administrators can rollback a malware infection or unwanted change on an endpoint by simply restarting the device. By stopping threats from spreading or getting out of control, it ensures the safety of the entire network.