The title is probably a good quote to reflect the spirit of the first day of the public workshop on “Collaborative Approaches for Medical Device and Healthcare Cybersecurity”, jointly hosted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Health and Human Services (HHS).
The number one takeaway from today is the unprecedented collaborative spirit across all stakeholders. Not only the government agencies hosting the event, but across healthcare providers, medical device manufacturers, and security experts. Numerous discussion panels and plenty of audience participation made one thing clear: everybody recognizes the need to address the problem of medical device cyber-vulnerability and everybody is willing to let their guard down and constructively contribute to the solution.
As discussions revealed, the problem is complex and the solution will need to combine technical, procedural, workflow, regulatory, legal, and policy elements. And, it will not happen quickly. Working through process latency and replacing or upgrading an existing infrastructure of legacy devices will take time and will face technical and practical implementation problems.
It is a “system of systems” problem in an “industry of industries” ecosystem – and as we learned today, it is being addressed by an “organization of organizations”. Here some of the key takeaways from day one:
I am looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow.