A Matter of Life, Death, and Data

Confidentiality is the cornerstone of HIPAA; failure to protect sensitive medical data from exposure can result in fines. Integrity is important because in worst‐case scenarios, poor data integrity can have catastrophic effects. This chapter explores the decision‐making processes, governance models, and some of the mindsets that create additional challenges within organizations. The intent of the board of directors is to provide the strategic direction for an organization, but how involved they are in the day‐to‐day politics can differ among various companies. In some cases, C‐level executives report directly to the board, while in others they report to various lines within organizations. In healthy organizations, enterprise risk management is a natural outcome of risk assessments. The bottom‐line mindset is about a large emphasis on dollars and cents that can cause issues with implementing cybersecurity properly.