Towards insighting cybersecurity for healthcare domains: A comprehensive review of recent practices and trends

Electronic healthcare technology is prevalent around the world and creates huge potential to improve clinical outcomes and transform care delivery. However, there are increasing concerns relating to the security of healthcare data and devices. Increased connectivity to existing computer networks has exposed medical devices to new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Healthcare is an attractive target for cybercrime for two fundamental reasons: it is a rich source of valuable data and its defences are weak. Cybersecurity breaches include stealing health information and ransomware attacks on hospitals, and could include attacks on implanted medical devices. Breaches can reduce patient trust, cripple health systems and threaten human life. Ultimately, cybersecurity is critical to patient safety, yet has historically been lax. New legislation and regulations are in place to facilitate change. This requires cybersecurity to become an integral part of patient safety. Changes are required to human behaviour, technology and processes as part of a holistic solution.

This study examines the current state of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology applications and their impact on the healthcare industry. In addition to a thorough review of the literature, this study analyzed several real-world examples of AI applications in healthcare. The results indicate that major hospitals are, at present, using AI-enabled systems to augment medical staff in patient diagnosis and treatment activities for a wide range of diseases. In addition, AI systems are making an impact on improving the efficiency of nursing and managerial activities of hospitals. While AI is being embraced positively by healthcare providers, its applications provide both the utopian perspective (new opportunities) and the dystopian view (challenges to overcome). We discuss the details of those opportunities and challenges to provide a balanced view of the value of AI applications in healthcare. It is clear that rapid advances of AI and related technologies will help care providers create new value for their patients and improve the efficiency of their operational processes. Nevertheless, effective applications of AI will require effective planning and strategies to transform the entire care service and operations to reap the benefits of what technologies offer.