An Incident Response and Handling Plan for Augusta Medical Hospital

An Incident Response and Handling Plan for Augusta Medical Hospital

In the current age, the level of dependency on technology for healthcare organizations has been tremendous. Therefore, cybersecurity has become a vital concern for Augusta Medical Hospital. There is a need for a robust incident response and handling plan to secure confidential patient information and ensure operational integrity. This paper provides a detailed Incident Response Play Book custom explicitly made for Augusta Medical Hospital. It further elaborates on the incident handling procedures, communication with external authorities, subcontractor standards, IR team, communication flow, services offered, and training requirements.

Incident Handling and Reporting Procedures

The process of dealing with incidents should have a beginning start in order to deal effectively with incidents. The initial setup for incident response should involve predetermining and prechecking possible threats. The Augusta Medical Hospital should properly monitor network activity, system logs, and user behavior so that any anomaly detected can be reported in its inception (Hong et al., 2020). In case of a potential incident, it is to be promptly reported to the Incident Response Team (IRT) for its analysis and classification. The IRT approach should be a systematic method involving the identification, containment, eradication, and recovery phases. In this process, documentation is critical for action at the moment and afterward when the incident happens. The hospital should also ensure that incidents are reported to the necessary internal stakeholders and detected by management and legal teams. This internal communication ensures that all the necessary resources are mobilized to respond to the threat promptly.

Communication with Outside Authorities

In the event of a cyber incident, Augusta Medical Hospital should notify external authorities accordingly; therefore, the hospital should notify law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies, and cybersecurity professionals as needed. According to the eb5, whenever a cyber incident, such as a violation of PHI, involves ransoms, the organization has to file a report immediately based on the HIPAA rules (She et al., 2020). The hospital should establish policies that specify the type of incidents that should be reported to an external office, the time frame for reports, and the type of information it should report. Notably, reporting to external authorities has the upper hand on the incident happening. Not only does it comply with the law, but it also minimizes the impact of the incident by using external professionals. This can be important in ransomware or data breach incidents because it constitutes criminal investigation.

Standards for Subcontractors and Customers

As Augusta Medical Hospital provides an integrative approach to patient care, in many instances, they would have to work with sub-contractors who will potentially gain access to their informatics systems. Third-party risk should be addressed through the imposition of rigorous cybersecurity standards on the hospital’s part. With a well-defined incident response plan, the cybersecurity standards of all the concerned parties should be noted in their contracts and own SLAs prior to the execution of any work (Lakka et al., 2022).

The hospital should periodically assess the capabilities of its subcontractors in incident response so that they are benchmarked and able to respond to an incident of cybersecurity. This could be achieved by going through the capabilities of the incident response plan, running exercises together, and ensuring that they align with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, among other things. In this way, third-party vulnerabilities would not undermine the hospital’s cybersecurity effectiveness.

Incident Response Team Structure

The structure of members in the incident response team at Augusta Medical Hospital should include members with emphasized expertise in IT security professionals, network engineers, legal advisors, and effective communication specialists (He et al., 2022). Heading the team is an incident response manager who will ensure that all activities in the incident response team align with the hospital’s general objectives and under the regulatory requirements.

Furthermore, the IRT should be broken down into smaller interlocked teams responsible for threat detection, containment, eradication, and recovery. Specialization in this manner allows each team member to be focused on their specialty; the response is more efficient and coordinated. The IRT should also work closely with other departments within the hospital to ensure seamless integration of the incident response plan within the hospital’s operation.

Communication Flow within the Hospital

Proper communication within the hospital is critical during a cyber-security incident. The IRT needs to open communication channels quickly and clearly to the institution’s clinical staff, administrative team, and executive leadership. Updates on the nature of the incident, mitigation procedures, and any impact on hospital operations should be communicated regularly to critical stakeholders. The communication channels should also be regularly tested through drills and exercises to ensure the staff knows their roles and responsibilities when an incident occurs. Besides, proper communication ensures coordination and ensures the continued services of the hospital with minimal impact.

Services Provided by the Incident Response Team

As health information security is a critical issue that Augusta Medical Hospital handles, the response team should be able to offer services that ensure the safety of the information systems and patient information. This can include round-the-clock monitoring against imminent threats, quick response to alerts, and after-incident recovery and analysis. The IRT should also offer guidance to hospital staff on implementing best practices for security and third-party requirements. Further, the IRT also needs to have a part in staff training and various programs meant to sensitize them so that they can know what might threaten them and provide proper responses. Proactive measures toward cybersecurity reduce the number of incidents and ensure preparedness among the workforce when things happen.

Training and Staffing Requirements

Successive training by Augusta Medical Hospital will help ensure that the IRT members remain vigilant in maintaining effectiveness in incident response. This can take the form of theoretical knowledge regarding cyber threats and practical exercises in simulated attacks and table drills, among others. Regular training will ensure that an IRT is prepared for up-to-the-minute threats and can respond with agility and effectiveness in resolving incidents. Senior management will also need to guarantee that the IRT is well-staffed and vigilant in responding to incidents at any time of the day, especially after working hours. In the event of major incidents, the hospital should have access to external experts who could provide additional support as required.

Conclusion

An effective incident response and handling plan are critical to how Augusta Medical Hospital will protect its information systems and data about patients from cybersecurity threats. Such a plan establishes proper procedures, communication channels, and standards in regard to an effective response to incidents. A well-trained and staffed hospital adds to the facility’s range of resiliency, making it prepared to deal with any cybersecurity challenge.

References

He, Y., Maglaras, L., Aliyu, A., & Luo, C. (2022). Healthcare security incident response strategy proactive incident response (IR) procedure. Security and Communication Networks, 2022(1), 2775249.

Hong, S., Park, S., Park, L. W., Jeon, M., & Chang, H. (2018). An analysis of security systems for electronic information for establishing secure Internet of things environments: Focusing on research trends in the security field in South Korea. Future Generation Computer Systems, 82, 769-782.

Lakka, E., Hatzivasilis, G., Karagiannis, S., Alexopoulos, A., Athanatos, M., Ioannidis, S., & Spanoudakis, G. (2022, June). Incident handling for healthcare organizations and supply chains. In 2022 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC) (pp. 1-7). IEEE.

Seh, A. H., Zarour, M., Alenezi, M., Sarkar, A. K., Agrawal, A., Kumar, R., & Ahmad Khan, R. (2020, May). Healthcare data breaches: insights and implications. In Healthcare (Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 133). MDPI.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Develop an Organization Incident Response and Incident Handling Plan

Organizations have utilized technology to gain a competitive advantage. When it comes to cybersecurity breaches, most agree that it is not a matter of if but when you will have a data breach. That is why it is important to have the right incident response team and plan in place.

An Incident Response and Handling Plan for Augusta Medical Hospital

For Augusta Medical Hospital, develop a 750- to 900-word incident handling/response play booklet that provides the hospital with a roadmap for implementing its incident response capabilities. Address the following:

• Explain procedures for performing incident handling and reporting.
• Describe established guidelines for communication with outside authorities.
• Describe how standards may be applied and assessed for a subcontractor or customer as part of the incident response process.
• Define the incident handling team structure.
• Differentiate how communication flows between the incident response team and the different staff sections within the hospital.
• Define the type of service the incident response team should provide.
• Summarize the training and staffing requirements for the incident response team.