Cybersecurity in Healthcare Technology: Protecting Patient Data

As we near the end of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s important to address a critical component of healthcare operations today: tech cybersecurity within your facility.

As technology and your patients’ private information intertwine, it leaves your hospital increasingly vulnerable to targeted cyberattacks. But with the right equipment in place, you can have peace of mind knowing your patient data is secure.

The Cybersecurity Risk of Patient Data

Why is patient data such a target for cybersecurity attacks? Today’s patient data contains a wealth of highly valuable information to hackers and cyber thieves, from credit card and bank account information to personal social security numbers and other protected health records. So, when patient data is breached, it’s not only expensive to fix, but it also damages a hospital’s reputation and even puts patients’ health at risk if vital medical records can’t be recovered.

How TV Distribution Systems Keep Patient Data Safe

Internet protocol television (IPTV) is widely embraced by healthcare facilities today, and for good reason. IPTV distribution systems like the all-in-one LuxeVision ipMerge can easily display various HD-quality video-on-demand content to hundreds of patient TVs throughout facilities. Yet with IPTV technology, hospitals can utilize these TV distribution systems to provide personalized on-screen patient communications and educational content.

Considering the growing cybersecurity threats medical facilities face, how can these TV distribution systems protect patient data? It starts with supporting your distribution system with a quality digital headend designed for healthcare facilities. A digital headend allows you to deploy IPTV throughout your facility with efficient bandwidth, remote management, and only a small data center footprint.

These digital headends offer a content delivery network (CDN) of servers that securely encrypt patient data as it’s delivered through your IPTV distribution system. The servers in digital headends can also provide vital DDoS mitigation to protect the patient data within your distribution system from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks generated by cybercriminals.

But the patient data protection doesn’t stop there. CDNs in digital headends include redundancy and backup capabilities so your distribution system keeps working in the event of any service disruptions. Your distribution system can also authorize or prevent access to IPTV content and incorporate firewalls and other antivirus protection to prevent malicious attacks.

Get Secure Healthcare TV Distribution Technology with RTG

Though patient data faces an increased risk of cyberattacks, utilizing the proper TV distribution systems can protect and mitigate it. But this security requires the know-how of an expert team who can partner with your facility’s unique TV distribution demands. At RTG, we can provide, install, and maintain the TV distribution systems you need to keep your patient data safe. Request a quote today to learn more.