Ordr, a provider in connected device security, has unveiled its Ordr Clinical Defender 8.1 solution, which provides healthcare technology management (HTM) teams with a full-lifecycle vulnerability management platform to more efficiently prioritize and address risks for their connected medical devices.

Clinical engineering teams are tasked with managing thousands of medical devices, many of them critical to patient care and safety. The volume of devices is increasing every day, with equipment from hundreds of manufacturers, running an enormous volume of operating systems. As hospitals merge (or are acquired), the diversity of devices can multiply overnight. The attack surface also continues to expand—while device visibility decreases—as healthcare providers open remote clinics and support telemedicine environments.

Securing the environment of care directly depends on the operational efficiency of the HTM team. With the 8.1 release, Ordr Clinical Defender optimizes the process of managing medical devices and their vulnerabilities. HTM teams benefit from visibility into devices everywhere, with insights optimized based on their function, location, skills, and experience. Critical vulnerabilities are prioritized based on business risks, and simplified workflows assign the right tasks to the right teams. As a result, no time is wasted, and no vulnerabilities go undetected or unaddressed.

“Simply put, HTM teams require more efficient ways to monitor devices and vulnerabilities in an ever-expanding healthcare environment,” says Pandian Gnanaprakasam, Ordr chief product offficer and co-founder. “Ordr Clinical Defender allows each user to focus on the specific devices they’re responsible for, from a single screen, and helps them understand, prioritize and manage vulnerability workflows based on full business context. This will ultimately improve efficiencies and enhance patient safety.”

The Clinical Defender 8.1 release also adds the Ordr Software Inventory Collector, and integration with Crowdstrike and Crowdstrike Humioto ensure HTM teams have comprehensive device and operating system visibility at their fingertips. Healthcare organizations no longer have to struggle with discovering offline devices, those in remote clinics and locations, and behind VPN connections, making it easy to properly patch software and protect every device everywhere. Healthcare delivery organizations can now also easily manage diverse devices – from un-agentable devices like MRI systems to medical workstations with agent-based Crowdstrike protections – within the same environment of care. 

Ordr Clinical Defender 8.1 includes:

  • Risk reduction through full-lifecycle vulnerability management – Ordr simplifies how healthcare delivery organizations manage the complete vulnerability lifecycle for connected healthcare devices.
  • Operational efficiency by aligning to HTM roles and responsibilities – Ordr enables users to group devices based on real-world business functions, allowing each user to see all devices under their management – and only those devices.
  • Enhanced security by eliminating device blind spots – Ordr Software Inventory Collector and Ordr’s new integration with Crowdstrike eliminate blind spots by gaining granular details of all connected devices everywhere.

“The visibility that we now have into our networked devices and their software inventory gives us greater assurance that we are properly maintaining and securing our systems to ensure that we can continue to provide excellent service and patient care,” says Stacy Estrada, information security manager, Montage Health.

Boyd Hutchins, director of clinical engineering, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, added: “Efficiencies in HTM and clinical engineering teams translate to improvements in patient safety. With the enhancements in Ordr Clinical Defender 8.1, HTM teams will now be able to manage the complete vulnerability lifecycle for all clinical devices. Ordr takes us beyond vulnerability monitoring and remediation to visibility into system utilization, instant access to system configuration, software levels, and location within our system.”

Clinical Defender was built on Ordr’s foundational asset and risk management features and developed with best practices from the top healthcare delivery organizations in the world. Now with comprehensive visibility into the software “stack” essential to understand vulnerabilities, Ordr is designed to make it easy for HTM teams to work with their security teams to address the shared goal of patient safety.

“Ordr Clinical Defender has been an invaluable tool to help our clinical engineering teams improve the management and security of our IoMT devices,” says Dave Yaeger, biomed security DBA for ProHealth Care. “The advancements in the latest release support our whole hospital security approach across the healthcare system and will evolve the way our clinical engineering and security teams work together to manage device vulnerabilities and risks.”