1.1. Overview of Telemedicine and its Growing Importance
Telemedicine has emerged as a transformative model for healthcare delivery wherein advanced information and communication technologies are utilized to provide remote clinical diagnosis and treatment across geographies (Stanberry, 2006). Telemedicine is the ability to evaluate, diagnose and treat patients using telecommunications technology (Ryu, 2012). This encompasses platforms enabling virtual consultations, followups, monitoring and education through videoconferencing, health data transfers, mHealth apps, robotics etc. between clinicians and patients (Balestra, 2018).
By overcoming locational barriers to care access, telemedicine provides substantial quality, convenience and cost improvements, demonstrated by considerably enhanced outcomes and patient experience metrics compared to traditional in-person models (Polinski et al., 2016). The COVID-19 pandemic has acted as an inflection point, with explosive growth in telemedicine adoption ranging from small clinics to large hospital networks observed as lockdowns necessitated urgent care decentralization while minimizing cross-infection risks (Ohannessian et al., 2020). Telemedicine is slated to grow to a market size of $431 billion by 2026, according to Fortune Business Insights, catalyzed by rapid internet and mobile penetration globally alongside improvements in integrated software and hardware systems enabling remote diagnosis through high-fidelity data transfers (Grand View Research, 2020).
1.1.1 Security Frameworks in Healthcare
The UC Davis Health System implemented the NIST Cybersecurity Framework in 2017 to bolster defenses across its network, medical devices, and patient care applications. By establishing cyber resilience as an organizational priority through leadership endorsement of the Framework, UC Davis was able to catalog over 5,000 security controls and evaluate assets against 5 defined function tiers. Within a year after adoption, the health system measured a 31% improvement in cyber maturity scores through enhanced threat visibility, vulnerability management and governance practices guided by NIST CSF. (HealthITSecurity, 2018)
The HIPAA Journal identified Children’s Health, Dallas amongst healthcare providers with the most effective ISO 27001 adoption strategies centered on inventorying every IT asset, reassessing controls and third-party risks annually and embedding certification into Board-level objectives. Quantitative results after 3 years included cutting incident response times by 63% and preventing an estimated $3 million in breach losses annually through the prioritized ISO 27001 roadmap. (HIPAA Journal, 2022)
Thus telehealth platforms are poised to form a critical pillar of 21st century data-driven and on-demand healthcare ecosystems by overcoming entrenched geographic and capacity-driven care disparities and providing physician oversight continuously. However, as patient caseloads managed through virtual modes accelerate, adequate cybersecurity foundations need active examination given the profoundly sensitive medical data involved.