CHIME Backs Senate Passage Of Cybersecurity Bill

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Your security clients’ cybersecurity initiatives have recently received additional support from the College Of Health Information Management Executives (CHIME).

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) passed October 27 in the Senate, 74-21, according to Newsweek. The bill is intended to improve cybersecurity in the U.S. by opening channels of information around threat information between government entities and the private sector.

In response, CHIME released a statement about the passage, according to Healthcare Informatics, that stated, in part, “Once enacted by the president, CISA will represent a significant advancement in cybersecurity and better enable the nation's chief information officers (CIO) and chief Information security officers (CISO) to better protect patient health information.”

CHIME, the leading association of healthcare executive security officers in the country, stated that CISA will give CIOs and CISOs the ability to share information around threats and vulnerability through a national, security information-sharing infrastructure. The infrastructure will include important liability protections that will prioritize patient trust. CHIME continued, “As an important piece of the nation's critical infrastructure, it is vital that healthcare organizations have the tools and information they need to identify and more effectively defend against growing cyber threats ... CHIME and AEHIS are especially encouraged that the Senate-approved bill includes language that would establish a cybersecurity framework specifically focused on healthcare and instructs the Department of Health and Human Services to identify a specific leader on cyber preparedness.”

CHIME president and CEO, Russell Branzell expressed his understanding of the huge tasks that information technology leaders are faced with. “The nation's CIOs and CISOs have been assigned the daunting task of securing patient information in a highly digital environment. Threats are evolving and there's no respite on the horizon. We've seen bad actors target large insurers, academic medical centers and community hospitals alike. We need to ensure our CIOs and CIOs have the resources they need, including the ability to share cyber threat information, to protect patient data.”

CHIME also takes credit for encouraging DHS to pull together industry stakeholders in an effort to “to develop industry-specific standards for protecting health information from cyber criminals and other sources of threats,” and also “to promote better cybersecurity information sharing between the private sector and government, and enhance collaboration and information sharing amongst the private sector.”