A single email account or an unsecured data portal are prime targets for cybersecurity criminals. Every day, hospitals, outpatient clinical practices, nursing homes and the vendors that support them must remain vigilant by implementing safety and security protocols to protect patient, resident and staff information, including personally identifiable information and protected health information.
Implementing cybersecurity procedures and protocols is a top focus for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Through its federally funded Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) program, CMS has contracted with seven different organizations across the U.S. to work directly with healthcare providers to help them establish or strengthen their cybersecurity plans and procedures.
CMS designated TMF Health Quality Institute to serve as the Southcentral CMS QIN-QIO (Region 5) to assist healthcare providers to establish robust internal systems, with one focus being on cybersecurity enhancement. To support this focus, health IT and cybersecurity subject matter experts from the Southcentral CMS QIN-QIO (Region 5) have created the following brief, on-demand webinars to allow healthcare providers to assess their knowledge on cybersecurity topics and provide guidance on developing strong health IT policies and procedures.
Part One and Part Two of the webinar series Recognizing and Preventing Social Engineering in Healthcare highlight how social engineering attacks like phishing, vishing and smishing target people rather than technology, especially in healthcare.
Administrators, clinical managers and practice leaders can gain practical cybersecurity strategies to use from another two-part series, Practical Endpoint Security for Healthcare. The first session discusses the basics of patching, how to reduce threats and what to ask your IT provider. In the second session, viewers learn about cybersecurity tools and how to build a layered security program.
Our webinar covering Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) gives information on what HIEs are, how they work from a technical and operational perspective and the value they provide to different types of healthcare providers.
The Electronic Health Record (EHR) Selection Guide webinar explains EHRs and their types, benefits and selection considerations, and discusses EHR interoperability and how they’re connected to HIEs.
The Southcentral CMS QIN-QIO (Region 5) works with CMS-identified hospitals, nursing homes and outpatient clinical practices in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, to provide free, direct technical assistance in collaboration with community-based organizations, public health agencies and other stakeholders to improve safety and quality of healthcare for Medicare beneficiaries.
The Southcentral CMS QIN-QIO (Region 5) website offers additional information and resources on the topics of health IT and cybersecurity, including a webpage dedicated to cybersecurity resources specific to the states in our region. Email
This material was prepared by TMF Health Quality Institute, the Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents do not necessarily reflect CMS policy. 13SOW-QINQIO-GEN-26-163 06/26