A survey of healthcare sector digitization strategies: Vulnerabilities, countermeasures and opportunities

The adoption of electronic healthcare in hospital environment can potentially reduce costs and improve the quality of life of the patients. However, numerous security and privacy issues arise when sensitive patient data is shared among multiple devices and users. Owing to its vulnerable nature, electronic health records seem to be more attractive to attackers compared to other forms of records such as financial transactions. Consequently, the patient data collected at the sensors, transmitted across communication channels and residing in hospital servers is susceptible to various threats. The goal of this paper was to carry out a survey of the electronic healthcare environment and attempt to understand the various weaknesses that can be exploited. This is followed by some descriptions of the various preventive mechanisms as well as the noted gaps. Therefore, numerous recommendations are given that are deemed fit for enhanced security and privacy posture in electronic healthcare domain.