For most cybersecurity professionals, one of the best ways to demonstrate success and return on technology investment is for nothing to happen. That is to say, there have been no security breaches, no phishing scams, no malware infections to network-connected devices and no systemwide outages.  

But for Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Shival Seth, it was important to show that somethinghadindeed happened. The organization's cybersecurity program had met or exceeded industry benchmarks. The investment in cybersecurity technology was working.  

Due to the rise in ransomware and other growing cybersecurity concerns, Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital had significantly invested in upgrading cybersecurity programs to better monitor all network traffic and the many devices connected to it. Those investments included solutions pertaining to data detection and inspection, as well as to endpoint detection and response. And because both Canadian hospitals are publicly funded, showing the return on investment was critical.  

Enter the HIMSS tool, INFRAM. The Infrastructure Adoption Model, better known as INFRAM, helps healthcare leaders determine their IT infrastructure's maturity level in terms of digital transformation. 

In the case of Grand River and St. Mary's Hospitals, the Cisco team measured the hospitals' perceived cybersecurity readiness by correlating infrastructure maturity to risk and cybersecurity readiness, specifically regarding business resiliency, threat intelligence and ransomware readiness. We focused on the INFRAM subdomains that most impact ransomware prevention and mitigation: endpoint security, threat detection and response, endpoint posture validation and content filtering. 

The results were very good and, as intended, impressed the key stakeholders who had originally approved those cybersecurity improvements. INFRAM was a crucial component in providing technology return on investment.  

This INFRAM assessment was not a one-time evaluation. The assessment looks at the capabilities in a given moment in time, but continuous evaluation and improvement are key to optimal digital maturation. That's why CTO Seth Shival plans to conduct another INFRAM assessment in two years' time. 

To learn more about the value of the INFRAM assessment and how Grand River Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital were able to show significant return on technology investment,read the full article from HIMSS.