A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives wrote a joint letter June 5 to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar voicing concerns and confusion about the status of the one-year-old Healthcare Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (HCCIC), and HHS’ overall cybersecurity capabilities.
The disorganization and drama around the fledging HCCIC goes back more than a year. The HCCIC was announced back in April 2017 by the then-HHS deputy Chief Information Security Officer, Leo Scanlon, and the center went live in June 2017. HCCIC was established to protect the nation’s healthcare system from cyber attack and was designed to focus its efforts on analyzing and disseminating cyberthreats across the healthcare industry in real time, according to HCCIC officials at the time.