HHS awards funds to protect private sector healthcare providers from cyber threats

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently awarded cooperative agreements worth $350,000 to assist healthcare providers and public health sector partners to respond to potential cybersecurity threats.

The funds were awarded through HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to the National Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (NH-ISAC). HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) awarded a cooperative agreement to NH-ISAC to assist infrastructure development to communicate cyber threat information to healthcare providers.

“These agreements mark a critical first step toward addressing the growing threat cybersecurity poses to the health care and public health sector,” Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, said. “Creating a more robust exchange about cybersecurity threats will help the industry prevent, detect and respond to these threats and better protect patients’ privacy and personally identifiable information.”

HHS said that a streamlined cyber threat information sharing process through a single entity would ease the way HHS disseminates information to a full range of stakeholders so that they may take appropriate action when needed. HHS added that the agreement would help build the capacity of NH-ISAC to receive cyber threat information from member healthcare entities.