Every hospital executive dreads the thought of a cyberattack. But what’s more concerning is that many health executives don’t know if their organization is fully prepared to prevent the damage levied by hackers, including device malfunctions, service disruptions, or patient data breaches, ECRI Institute say.

Moreover, ECRI Institute has announced new Cybersecurity Gap Analysis service to help hospitals and health systems protect their medical devices from being used in a cyberattack against them.

The new service examines eight operational areas that hospitals often overlook, including identifying network-connected devices and their associated risks, managing the latest security patches for medical devices, prioritizing devices based on stored data and functionality, and ensuring that appropriate device security training is in place.

“As we’ve seen in the headlines, no hospital or health system of any size can afford to let their guard down when it comes to protecting themselves and their patients against hackers. Our gap analysis gives hospitals the opportunity to reassess and readjust their medical device cybersecurity initiatives to better control their efforts to keep their data, devices, and patients safe,” says Robert P. Maliff, director of ECRI Institute’s applied solutions group.

Visit ECRI Institute’s website for more information.