Staff compliance and fast updating are the keys to healthcare facility cybersecurity, according to an article on the Lehigh Valley Business website.

American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) developed a list of 17 best practices regarding a hospital cybersecurity plan. According to the report, immediately updating systems when patches are released by the manufacturer is critical.

“A lot of the attacks could be prevented if people were keeping their systems up-to-date with the patches,” Kathy Downing, AHIMA’s vice president of information governance and informatics, said in the article.

In addition according to John Riggi, senior adviser for cybersecurity and risk for the American Hospital Association in Chicago, the staff of a hospital can either be their best defense against cyberthreats or the weakest link. Hackers target employees through phishing emails or other social engineering tactics.

Read the article.