How Hospitals Can Strengthen Cyber Defenses Through Collaboration

Hospitals learn from each other faster than any one of them can learn alone, and cyberattacks spread fast. Peer discussion and practice exercises help teams get ready for incidents that hit patient safety, privacy and operations at once.

Hospitals have it worse than most. Old systems, ransomware and short staffing collide with strict regulation, and preparing with peers gives leaders a chance to find gaps before a crisis forces their hand.

What the Safe Table offers hospital leaders

The MHA Keystone Center Patient Safety Organization (PSO), part of the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, runs Safe Table events where hospital leaders discuss sensitive problems in a legally protected, confidential setting. In June 2025 it hosted two: a cybersecurity session on June 4 at MHA headquarters in Okemos, with endorsed business partner CyberForce|Q, and a virtual session on regulatory inspections on June 17.

The confidentiality matters. Staff can talk about real incidents and weak spots without the discussion turning into evidence against them later.

Ransomware tops the list of threats

The cybersecurity session covered how to find and manage cyber risk, spot gaps in current programs and build security into budgets and long-term plans. Ransomware is the big worry. It can shut down records systems and force ambulances to divert.

Attendees also ran an incident response tabletop exercise led by CyberForce|Q, walking through how a hospital would respond if an attack took down clinical systems.

Preparing for regulators

The June 17 session, held with the Alliance for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety, covered what hospitals should do when regulators such as CMS, OSHA and The Joint Commission schedule a visit. Hospitals also have to meet HIPAA’s rules for protecting patient information.

Speakers also covered how to protect and disclose Patient Safety Work Product, and how to meet the CMS Patient Safety Structural Measures, which hospitals now have to attest to. An inspection can show a hospital where its controls fall short. Better to find out first.

Why peers share what went wrong

Safe Tables rest on the idea that hospitals defend better together. One hospital’s mistake, shared in a protected room, can stop the same mistake at another. Partnerships with firms such as CyberForce|Q bring in outside expertise.

Participants were urged to keep training staff and to keep their technology current.

Takeaways for hospital security teams

The MHA Keystone Center’s Safe Tables give Michigan hospitals a confidential place to compare notes on cybersecurity and regulatory readiness, and a chance to rehearse before an attack.

Leaders leave with a tabletop exercise, a list of gaps to check and peers they can call.

For hospitals outside Michigan, the model is worth copying: get peers in a room, test the plan, and fix what breaks.

Dan Evert, CCNP

Dan Evert is a self proclaimed Router Jockey. Dan got heavily involved in networking right out of high school and has never looked back! Dan is giving back by working with high school students to get them involved and interested in Networking and Security.