How to better balance imperatives for speed and security
In Part 1 of this three-part series, LogicGate’s Nick Kathmann explains healthcare’s “Golden Hour” and why it makes cybersecurity a particularly difficult challenge for hospitals and other care facilities.
The Golden Hour puts a premium on prompt treatment. Security practices can eat up precious time, but ignoring them can lead to higher hacking risks. Healthcare professionals refer to the first hour after a patient suffers a traumatic medical incident as the “Golden Hour.” Whether or not a patient receives care during this brief window is one of the best indicators of whether they will recover.
For example, if a stroke victim does not receive treatment within the first hour, their chances of making a full recovery drop significantly. The same is true for patients who have suffered a serious injury or otherwise have been involved in an accident. Any EMT will tell you that the first hour is critical. Get to them fast, get them stable fast, and get them to a hospital fast. The Golden Hour is crucial to recovery and staying alive.
This is surprisingly relevant to cybersecurity. As healthcare technology has become increasingly digitized, cybersecurity has grown into a top-level concern for hospitals and other care facilities. Unfortunately, security always comes with trade-offs, often in the form of friction.
