IoT Use Cases in Healthcare

IoT Use Cases in Healthcare

Healthcare providers are increasingly leveraging connected devices to enhance patient outcomes, streamline operations, and improve clinical decision-making. IoT use cases in healthcare cover a wide range of applications, from remote patient monitoring and smart beds to wearable devices, infusion pumps, and connected imaging equipment. Each device generates critical data that helps medical teams make informed decisions. As hospitals and health systems expand their use of IoT healthcare solutions, securing these devices has become a top priority for both patient safety and organizational cybersecurity.

Baptist Health’s IoT Environment

Baptist Health comprises nine hospitals, employs 23,000 staff (along with over 2,000 independent physicians), and operates more than 400 points of care, with nearly 2,500 licensed beds. The organization’s employed provider network, Baptist Health Medical Group, includes over 750 physicians and 740 advanced practice clinicians. Managing this complex environment requires careful oversight of both clinical operations and the IoT healthcare use cases that support patient care.

With more than thousands of connected devices in use, ranging from critical life-supporting equipment to everyday IT peripherals, ensuring the security of these assets is essential to prevent potential vulnerabilities from being exploited by malicious actors.

Challenges in Securing Healthcare IoT Devices

Baptist Health operates a vast ecosystem of medical devices, IoT devices, and traditional IT equipment. Properly managing all of these assets is essential to ensure the effectiveness of cybersecurity efforts and achieve optimal healthcare IoT security.

A major challenge is maintaining a complete asset inventory. Without full Layer 1 visibility, it is difficult for healthcare teams to know exactly what devices are present in facilities at any given time. Michael Erickson, CISO of Baptist Health, emphasizes, “Understanding what’s in our facilities at any given time is a big challenge.” This lack of visibility creates a significant risk as cyberattack tools become more sophisticated, smaller, and harder to detect.

Security Threats to Connected Devices

Securing IoT in healthcare can be challenging, as malicious tools can hide within other assets, such as medical devices, IoTs, or peripherals, while exploiting the Physical Layer blind spot by spoofing legitimate devices. “If you have an attack tool that’s designed to actually look like, or simulate or impersonate something that’s relatively benign, and it’s in your environment and it’s not doing anything, it’s pretty difficult to know that it’s there”, says Michael.

These vulnerabilities highlight why healthcare organizations must carefully evaluate IoT use cases in healthcare when designing security strategies. Each connected device is a potential attack vector, and the growing adoption of IoT healthcare solutions underscores the need for robust cybersecurity measures.

Ensuring Device Integrity and Security with Sepio

Traditional security solutions often cannot differentiate between legitimate devices and rogue devices, such as MAC spoofing tools or HID emulators. With numerous connected devices in use, from critical medical equipment to routine IT peripherals, ensuring device integrity is critical. “When you think about the delivery of a piece of equipment, are we able to be sure that the equipment delivered is actually what was designed by the manufacturer?” says Michael Erickson.

Gain Full Visibility and Control Over Your IoT Healthcare Assets

Organizations can secure IoT use cases in healthcare by gaining complete visibility over their connected devices. Sepio’s solutions provide 100% hardware device visibility, enabling healthcare providers to detect unauthorized devices, prevent data breaches, and enforce policy controls across the network.

By monitoring all connected medical devices and IoT endpoints, healthcare organizations can proactively mitigate risks, comply with healthcare regulations, and maintain the highest levels of patient safety.

Talk to an expert. It will help you understand how to use Sepio’s patented technology to gain control of your asset risks.