Top Trends in Healthcare Technology, Cybersecurity in 2022

January 10, 2022 - This new year presents a very unique opportunity in the history of healthcare technology and cybersecurity.

“The last two years, while they've certainly been tragic and very trying, have also been the precursor that was really necessary to get telehealth off of the sidelines and into the mainstream,” Jake Harper, an associate at Morgan Lewis, said on Healthcare Strategies. 

“As a result of that, this is going to be— knock on wood—the first year where we have some degree of normals in terms of our everyday lives. But at the same time we'll be living in a time where we have more understanding of how telehealth works and how remote patient monitoring works.”

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According to Harper, being at this stage creates certain opportunities. Remote patient monitoring and telehealth will become a more permanent fixture of healthcare in 2022, along with the hybrid model that will sustain them. And policymakers will have to adjust the regulatory space to fit this new reality, including refining remote therapeutic monitoring codes.

In particular, Medicare policies and laws that impact seniors will have to take into account that seniors are comfortable with and adept at using technology to support their healthcare needs.

While new technologies will be settling into the healthcare system and becoming more normalized, innovation will not cease in 2022.

For example, one big shift that healthcare professionals can anticipate in healthcare technology is the higher adoption of public cloud. On the Healthcare Strategies podcast, Tim Beerman, chief technology officer of Ensono, pointed out that these technologies can offer healthcare workers a lot of flexibility.

Additionally, Amit Phadnis, chief digital officer at GE Healthcare, projected that reducing burnout would become a major theme of healthcare technology innovation. Specifically, he noted how artificial intelligence (AI) could start to handle repetitive tasks that tend to increase provider burnout.

However, this hybrid environment that interweaves digital healthcare and physical healthcare is not without its risks. New technologies and the need for regulatory and procedural adjustments can leave patients and healthcare organizations exposed to security threats.

Linda Malek, partner at law firm Moses & Singer and chair of the firm's healthcare privacy and cybersecurity practice groups, expected three main cybersecurity and privacy trends in 2022: more significant data breaches, federal and global legislation to protect data privacy and security, and greater reliance on artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Mac McMillan, chief executive officer at Cynergistek, predicted that ransomware attacks will focus on disruption, as opposed to data theft. In particular, he foresaw a higher rate of AI-integrated cyber attacks.

“What we're going to see is that everybody has figured out that, yes, you need to build a program; yes, you need to invest in technology and in solutions—but now we need to make sure that they're working,” McMillan stressed.

“And that means that we're going to need to see increases in testing and compromise assessments and security controls, evaluations or validations. We’re going to have to start actually testing those controls.”