Vizient Applauds FDA Plan to Improve Medical Device Cybersecurity

Vizient has relationships with thousands of suppliers, hospitals, and health systems and is uniquely positioned to bring these stakeholders together to discuss solutions that will enhance cybersecurity. We strongly support the FDA’s goals of establishing a robust medical device patient safety net and encouraging innovation towards safer medical devices.

Vizient members face challenges in assessing the cybersecurity risk level of medical devices in order to operate these devices in a secure manner, and supports the FDA in efforts to encourage device manufacturers to equip providers with enhanced device profile related information. This will greatly increase patient safety when a cybersecurity threat arises. When providers have access to this basic medical device information, they have the ability to identify which systems and applications the device is connected to, along with the risk level of the device.

Earlier this year, Vizient launched the Medical Device Cybersecurity Task Force, which includes information security leaders from 25 of our member health system organizations. The Task Force is engaging with device manufacturers, suppliers, cybersecurity consultants, government, and industry experts. The Vizient Medical Device Cybersecurity Task Force looks forward to having the opportunity to leverage our unique position in the marketplace to work collaboratively with our stakeholders to facilitate the public-private collaboration outlined in the FDA’s Action Plan.

Vizient is the nation’s largest health care performance improvement company serving a diverse membership that includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health care delivery networks and non-acute health care providers.

About Vizient, Inc.

Vizient, Inc., the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country, provides innovative data-driven solutions, expertise and collaborative opportunities that lead to improved patient outcomes and lower costs. Vizient’s diverse membership base includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and non-acute health care providers and represents approximately $100 billion in annual purchasing volume. The Vizient brand identity represents the integration of VHA Inc., University HealthSystem Consortium and Novation, which combined in 2015, as well as MedAssets’ Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) segment, including Sg2, which was acquired in 2016. In 2018, Vizient again received a World’s Most Ethical Company designation from the Ethisphere Institute. Vizient’s headquarters are in Irving, Texas, with locations in Chicago and other cities across the United States. Please visit www.vizientinc.com as well as our newsroom, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages for more information about the company.

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