Episodes

Secure connections and digital transformation are what Cybersecurity is all about. In this episode, Sam Curry, the Vice President and CISO at Zscaler discusses the company’s strategy of connecting people, devices, and workloads in a secure and detailed manner. Zscaler aims to optimize networking, bandwidth, and quality of service for digital transformation. Sam explains how they address challenges, like centralized traffic, focusing on fine-grained authorization and business insights. He talks about his cybersecurity background and commitment to it, emphasizes the unique risks healthcare faces related to personal health information, and shares a little about his passion for science fiction writing and personal connections. Tune in and learn how Zscaler approaches cybersecurity challenges and solutions for healthcare!

Security is a team sport, not a one-man job. In this episode, Chris Logan, Senior Vice President, and Chief Security Officer at Censinet, talks about his career and how, in his current position, he’s seen the company’s security program grow and become more lock-tight for the benefit of all its users. Chris started as an information assurance officer at the Marine Corps, went through MIT, and then into healthcare security, learning and growing from every role that led him to Censinet, where he’s been for a year and a half. There, he ensured information got protected by layering security and attestations as necessary all over the business, working with every single actor in the midst. He also talks about his passion for giving back to the community and ties his political side to his healthcare security work as he constantly targets to improve the system. Listen to this episode and learn more about Chris and his work for healthcare security!

Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith. In this episode, Sean Kelly shares his journey through emergency medicine roles and several businesses, learning and adopting technology in his practice, and eventually becoming Imprivata’s CMO and SVP of Customer Strategy for Healthcare. Sean has a passion for teaching at the bedside and working with students and residents in emergency medicine, an environment he navigated through several sites for many years. A trauma transfer call from a friend led him to Martha's Vineyard, where he built a home concierge care business. This endeavor pushed him to adopt technology, delivering different levels of care around the island at the same time. This newfound interest eventually led him to Imprivata, where he’s proud to be doing his part to improve healthcare with technology. Tune in to learn from Sean Kelly’s journey in healthcare!

The United States must take a stronger stance against cyber threats. In this episode, Greg Garneau, Chief Information Security Officer for Marshfield Clinic, talks about cyber risk as a threat health systems face and how tightening security processes and working together helps organizations be prepared for them. Greg is constantly rehearsing, practicing, proofing, and ensuring that Marshfiel’s resiliency, security processes, and procedures are at their best so the health system can recover quickly when a cyber attack happens. He shares how thanks to Censinet, they have experienced a transformation making third-party risk assessments more efficient, something crucial for any organization but used to take up a long time. Greg believes security programs have been siloed for too long, but building great teams and establishing collaboration will ultimately make security processes better and everyone safer. Unfortunately, organizations never know when they’ll be attacked, but being prepa…

Privacy must include risk, not only compliance when doing assessments. In this episode, Karen Habercoss, Chief Privacy Officer at the University of Chicago Medicine, discusses healthcare privacy regarding compliance, working with security teams, and taking more risks for better protection. In healthcare, privacy work focuses on people’s data rights, and working alongside security teams can help to ensure this data is protected against any incidents. Karen believes privacy needs to move away from just compliance into a risk-based model for privacy, implementing actions like risk ranking and gaps identification to become more active rather than reactive. She also gives her take on leadership and understanding employees to help them perform at their best. Listen to this episode and learn about how risk can enhance privacy protection!

The bad guys figured out how to organize cybercrime; now, healthcare needs to manage prevention. In this episode, Dan Dodson, CEO of Fortified Health Security, talks about improving healthcare cybersecurity by collaborating between organizations, sharing best practices and strategies, and even funding smaller players to deliver care safely with the best technology available. Every health system is at a different point in its cyber journey. Under Dan’s leadership, Fortified works to put them in the best position to either avoid cyber attacks or recover quickly from them. Cybersecurity can no longer be a siloed issue under IT as it has become something that affects every aspect of an institution in a digital era. He also discusses how, as CEO, building a company culture focused on the people they serve, teamwork, and stability regarding safe clinical care is imperative. Tune in to learn about the importance of collaboration for cybersecurity in healthcare!

Many small healthcare practices need help catching up to date to protect themselves. In this episode, Karen Blanchette, Executive Director of the Professional Association of Health Care Office Management, talks about her career and how it led her to a role supporting, guiding, and advocating for small practices, especially around cybersecurity and technology issues. She shares her healthcare career and how experience and knowledge were earned after an MBA and working in various positions in the industry. With the current cyberspace that healthcare needs to navigate, PAHCOM provides guidelines by organizations like the HHS and offers employees free IT education programs with a grant from the Department of Labor, ensuring small practices have the tools required to protect themselves and their patients. Finally, she discusses some of the riskiest activities she enjoys, like racing sailboats and jumping out of airplanes, which require a lot of focus and stepping out of one’s comfort zo…

Cyberattacks on hospitals are no joke. In this episode, John Riggi, national advisor for Cybersecurity and Risk with the American Hospital Association, talks about his work to protect healthcare’s cyberspace nationwide and his advocacy in government for policies that address this topic. John used to work for the FBI and the CIA, and the same perpetrators he dealt with back then are the ones attacking the US on the cyber front: international organized criminals, nation-states, and terrorists. Ransomware attacks on hospitals are threat-to-life attacks as they risk public health and safety. Because they delay care delivery, he’s actively working to make the government understand ransomware's impact and encourage them to go against those carrying it out. He explains why, as a child of immigrants, he feels passionate about the nation’s safety, and even shares a high-risk story of his time at the NYC FBI SWAT team. Tune in to learn more about John Riggi and how he protects healthcare’…

To drive digital innovation in healthcare, we must work from many perspectives. In this episode, Aaron Miri, Senior Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Baptist Health Jacksonville, talks about what drives him to keep improving healthcare with digital solutions in his role. Coming from a computer engineer background, Aaron found himself in healthcare, and his career moved to Jacksonville, where he works closely with operators, marketing, and business leaders to engage with patients coming to Baptist. He speaks of implementing a low-code platform that allows nurses and doctors to write their own software, MOXI robots, and AI analytics at Baptist Health. He also mentions how AI tools like Chat GPT could help future healthcare professionals gain knowledge in an accelerated and efficient way. Tune in to learn about Aaron’s career and work at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida!

Buckle up and get ready for this AI model to teach you some lessons. In this episode, host Ed Gaudet has a fruitful talk with Chat GPT. Developed by OpenAI, Chat GPT is an AI language model that generates humanlike, accurate, and helpful resources. Ed asked the tool for advice directed at healthcare CISOs to ensure patient data safety. It points out different ways of implementing a risk-based approach focused on areas that pose a greater risk and cybersecurity frameworks that healthcare organizations meet their obligations. Additionally, Chat GPT provided Ed with detailed, thoroughly explained lists of regulations, things to report to boards of directors, benchmarking tips, and cyber controls for CISOs to consider. The tool also shares information about itself, sharing its capabilities and limitations, how CISOs and other workers could use tools like it to enhance their skills and knowledge, and even a few of its quirky takes on pop culture, music, and poetry. Listen to this epi…

Understanding the threats is vital to preparing actions against them. In this episode, Lucia Milică Stacy talks about how her passion for securing healthcare information drives her work as Global Resident Chief Information Security Officer at Proofpoint and her participation within the Healthcare Sector Coordinating Council’s CSA 405(d) Task Group. As a cybersecurity professional, it’s crucial to be well-informed about the tactics, tools, and techniques that cyber threat actors use to disrupt care delivery. She happily collaborates in the 405(d) task group to share best cybersecurity practices with healthcare organizations for them to implement. Lucia also discusses contributing to CISO knowledge with their content hub and the 2022 Voice of the CISO report. Listen to Lucia's insights from her CISO perspective on healthcare cybersecurity!

Technology is a tool for care delivery but never a replacement for those who provide it. In this episode, John Halamka, emergency medicine physician, medical informatics expert, and president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, talks about healthcare transformation leveraging AI and ML technologies to augment human intelligence in a private, ethical, and safe way. John was passionate about analog and digital technologies in his childhood, which led him to envision healthcare’s technological evolution, which guided him through emergency medicine and innovative technologies. From the Mayo Clinic platform, he works with many organizations worldwide to assemble a big secure de-identified data set that enables innovation and model development, considering patients’ requirements. He also speaks about the Unity Farm Sanctuary, a place he and his wife built from the ground up that has served the community, his knowledge of mushrooms and plants, and his experiences ice-climbing. Tune in to lear…

Cybersecurity should also seek the organization’s resilience. In this episode, Erik Decker, Vice President, and Chief Information Security Officer for Intermountain talk about healthcare cybersecurity within his organization and at a national scale to protect the system from potential threats. He explains how the Healthcare Sector Coordinating Council deploys several task groups to cover a wide range of security issues nationwide, specifically how the 405(d) task group focuses on threats attacking the healthcare system and practices to mitigate them. Finally, he discusses the pleasure of doing “nerdy” things, a huge risk he took scuba diving in Cozumel, and reflects on his past limitations while recognizing there is a wide array of things he can do. Tune in to this episode to learn more about Erik's work at Intermountain and the HSCC task group!

Welcome to Risk Never Sleeps! For the first episode of this podcast, host Ed Gaudet welcomes Drex DeFord, Executive Healthcare Strategist at CrowdStrike, who shares deep insights about cybersecurity in healthcare, taking risks, and even his personal life. Drex wound up in cybersecurity after a long career in healthcare with an Air Force background. There, he was able able to witness how the United States' infrastructure and small-sized healthcare organizations have long relied on systems that lack good cybersecurity programs, a problem he believes can be approached by building sustainable cyberculture. He reflects on his past self, how risks have shaped him into who he is today, and three key items when responding to incidents: perspective, experience, and resilience. Drex also chats with Ed about the value he finds in his family, his dog Jackpot, the Pacific Northwest, and the creative process behind EDM music. Tune in to learn more about Drex DeFord and his thoughts on healthc…