Data Storyteller

The Health IT Emergency Response Plan Assessment Tool helps health centers evaluate and enhance their emergency plans, focusing on optimizing Health IT use during crises.

This article uses the 2020 incident at the Family Health Center of Worcester (FHCW) to explore innovative strategies to bolster health centers' cybersecurity, including leveraging group purchasing organizations (GPOs) for discounted solutions and implementing bug bounty programs to proactively strengthen systems. Ultimately, it investigates how these approaches can protect vital community health resources from the escalating tide of cyber threats.

This HITEQ Highlights session explored the urgent need for enhanced cybersecurity in health centers, highlighting real-world impacts through the case study of the Family Health Center of Worcester ransomware attack.

Join our free learning collaborative designed to help health centers optimize technology to deliver care in dynamic settings. This series will focus on the unique challenges and opportunities of using EHRs and other health information technology in care settings such as mobile units, school-based health centers, street outreach programs, and correctional facilities.

The exercise cards in this set present scenarios and response-related questions designed to provide a quick (5–10 minute) method for health center staff to: Refresh knowledge of the content in their emergency and cyber incident response plans; Examine and troubleshoot procedures in their emergency and cyber incident response plans; Identify improvements to their emergency and cyber incident response plans; and Increase staff capacity to operationalize the actions outlined in their emergency and cyber incident response plans. The scenarios and questions on these cards can serve as a starting point to spark discussions amongst your team about scenarios and responses that are specific to the context of your health center (e.g., what extreme weather events are most common in your area?). The first five cases describe environmental scenarios, and the last two cases describe cybersecurity scenarios.