Breaches of Healthcare IT systems are becoming more and more commonplace. Healthcare organizations continually face cyber threats, which put patient privacy and safety at risk. These threats also have significant impact on business continuity and financial health of all healthcare organizations.

Issues relating to Healthcare IT systems and its security were once the sole domain of engineers in the ITdepartment. This is no longer true. Understanding security issues and protecting against them is job #1 for all healthcare workers from the top to the bottom of the healthcare system.

Advances in technology have made the whole cybersecurity issue pretty complicated to understand, especially for the average healthcare worker. This class on cybersecurity is focused on the non healthcare professional who is just trying to get a familiarization onwhat cybersecurity is and how they can protect themselves, their organizations and their patients from harm.

There are 2 modules to this Cybersecurity class (Part 1 and Part 2). This module is Part 1.

The topics covered in this "Cybersecurity in Healthcare, Part 1" module are:

• What is Cyber Security?

• The Nature of the Problem

• Controlling Access

  • Something You Know (Passwords)

  • Something You Have (FOB)

  • Something You Are (Biometrics)

• Authenticating Access

• Phishing / Spam

This "PLAIN AND SIMPLE" series on Healthcare Information Systems strives to introduce the basic concepts of information technology and systems in a very simple and easy to understand format using many examples from both non healthcare and healthcare environments. This course is targeted at the Basic / Intermediate Level learner and for those who are not healthcare IT professionals.

The content of the series is based on the author's 35 years experience in the healthcare information systems business. This experience spans product design and launch, marketing, business development and executive management (including president). In addition, it is based on 15 years teaching at the graduate level in the University environment.