Creating a Cyberattack Plan for Radiology Operations: A Practical Pediatric Perspective

Abstract

Purpose

To describe the development of a comprehensive plan for the initial radiology department in response to a cyberattack, aligned with enterprise-wide disaster preparedness in a pediatric hospital setting.

Methods

Our department participated in a coordinated, multidisciplinary enterprise effort to build a cyberattack protocol. We created a command center model to maintain radiology operations in the event of a complete network outage, which includes organizing staff, tracking equipment, archiving imaging studies, and communicating within and outside our department. This plan encompasses all imaging modalities and current interdepartmental dependencies.

Results

A radiology downtime strategy was created to address cyber-events, including command center setup, modality-based imaging workflows, secure communication, and equipment recovery, with a focus on paper-based tools, encrypted storage, teamwork across departments, streamlined approach to image acquisition and interpretation, and postevent follow-up.

Conclusion

This work highlights the need for radiology departments to proactively outline cyberattacks protocols. By sharing our process, we aim to support other institutions in building robust systems to sustain imaging services during network outages. To ensure readiness for potential future cyberattacks, it is important to maintain readiness, aligned with multidepartmental efforts.