A New York Times best-selling author recognized the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM) for its awareness efforts in cybersecurity.
Marc Goodman, a global strategist, writer and consultant, provided a general session during the American Osteopathic Association’s annual Osteopathic Medical Education (OMED) conference in Baltimore at the end of October. He spoke about how allopathic schools of medicine and the American Medical Association had information on cybersecurity in healthcare but no osteopathic associations or osteopathic medical schools did – except WVSOM.
During the OMED session, he provided a specific example of how the medical school had published information on its website regarding National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and encouraged students and staff to view the information.
“Cybersecurity and medical cybercrime are critical issues facing the health care industry. Few in osteopathic medicine have dedicated the resources and training required to not only protect patients’ HIPAA-protected information, but patients’ lives themselves,” Goodman said. “As technology increasingly becomes embedded in hospitals, doctors’ offices and even patients’ bodies, physicians will need to understand more and more about these grave risks. To date, the only osteopathic medical school which has publicly posted information on their website about these challenges is WVSOM – a great initial effort that should be built upon extensively in the future.”
Goodman has addressed cybersecurity concerns in his book, Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World. He provides insights about the risks and opportunities associated with newly emerging technologies.
Kim Ransom, WVSOM’s chief technology officer, said to be acknowledged for doing the right things by an expert in the cybersecurity field is a great accomplishment.
“It’s surprising to hear that WVSOM was the only osteopathic medical school out there providing cybersecurity information, and I’m glad we are leading that charge,” Ransom said. “I personally feel like WVSOM is trying to do all the right things within the information technology department to make sure our network and servers are secure and that we are educating the campus community on what they should and shouldn’t be doing online.”
October was National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Aside from awareness information posted on the school’s website, WVSOM also flags external emails as possible spam, releases information on cybersecurity in the monthly electronic newsletter and has a webpage dedicated to submitting potential fraudulent emails.
