The healthcare industry is plagued by a myriad of cybersecurity-related issues posing new challenges in the Healthcare Sector. In an increasingly data-driven world, cybersecurity is no longer just a concern for experts. During the last 12 months, Europe came across an unprecedented number of cyber-attacks in terms of their global scale, impact on business sector and rate of spread. Characteristically, the May’s 2017 attack in England’s National Health Service (NHS) demonstrated in the most flashing way the vulnerabilities of information systems (IS) in any possible way. Healthcare organizations are some of the most-trusted entities holding the most sensitive information about patients: name, date and place of birth, medical records, social security details. Suffering from many flaws (low budget, lack of IT organization, excessive use of legacy systems), healthcare actors have become easy targets for hackers, facing more and more pressure and threats from them. The nature of the healthcare industry’s mission poses unique challenges since cyber-attacks can have ramifications beyond financial loss and breach of privacy.The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016/679 which will be directly applicable in all member states by 25 May 2018 requires for healthcare organizations to re-think about their data flows and how they handle and monitor patient data to make sure they are in compliance with the regulation. At the same time, the expected massive growth of data protection jobs redrives new skills, knowledge and competences from Healthcare employees. As a result, Healthcare Sector is facing the risk of rising skills mismatch between data protection officers/employees across European countries with different occupational profile on skills and competences and most importantly, different level of legislation/integration on data protection. Our proposed Project aims at empowering the major actors with employees that are going to fill the gap and the identified skills mismatch through: • Developing enhanced regional and cross-regional partnerships to ensure that a sufficient number of healthcare employees and learners receive the right training / education based on current needs • Connecting educational and vocational training with healthcare industry and organisations in a more systematic and coherent way • Developing an environment that is going to foster employability of employees in the healthcare sector, providing adequate tools that will better their working conditions and the quality of services provided. • Improving comparability and transfer of skills and competences focusing on-line training of current healthcare employees based on a blended approach, while introducing innovative education/ training initiatives. • Raising awareness and improving the knowledge on patients’ data privacy protection as well as providing concrete information on rising legal aspects Concise description of the results and/or products expected: - A renewed Occupational Profile for DPOs accompanied by a new Skills Chart - A DPO VET Curriculum accompanied by a detailed WBL Scheme - An Awareness raising Curriculum on Data Protection for current and future employees - Data Protection and GDPR Learning Resources for learners and wider audiences and WBL Employer Manual - On line web platform for “Data Protection Ready” Employees - A new Certification Scheme for Data Protection - Concrete Methodology for Quality Assurance and Licencing of DPO VET Curricula -Development of effective feedback loops to enhance VET provision Our partnership has formed a coherent strategy to reach: • Stakeholders: Health associations, health/pharmaceutical industry, VET providers, independent data protection authorities Chamber Unions • End users: DPOs, Information security experts, lawyers of Bars Associations, current and future employees learners & trainers making use of the learning and training resources developed The impact envisaged: GDPR4H is going to achieve an important Social and Financial Impact, specifically: For Stakeholders: • Strengthened interoperability network across employers and employees • Employers and social partners will maintain an important role in shaping DPOs VET provision. • Industry-ready workforce meeting labour market needs • Increased confidence and mutual trust for Data Protection • Increased visibility of outputs through open multifarious dissemination channels. 2. End users: current and future employees in Data Protection: • Better employability chances • Transparent joint qualifications and trasferrable skills through a viable Certification Scheme • Enhanced competitiveness for the data protection field. • Exchange of good practices through trans-regional mobility and advanced WBL schemes • Harmonised but not homogenised learning-outcome based and teaching approach across the three countries
The healthcare sector is dominated by a myriad of cybersecurity-related issues that pose new challenges to the healthcare sector. In an increasingly data-driven world, cybersecurity is no longer just an issue for experts. In the past, Europe has encountered an unprecedented number of cyber-attacks in terms of their global scale, their impact on the business sector and their spread rate. Healthcare organizations are among the most trusted institutions with the most sensitive information about patients: name, date and place of birth, medical records, Social Security information. Health care players have become an easy target for hackers because of many difficulties (low budget, lack of IT organization, overuse of legacy systems) and are facing increasing pressure and threats from them. In particular, the situation under Covid19 showed the vulnerability of many IT systems. Through home office and travel restrictions, many contacts were carried out virtually, in the health care system (health offices, medical practices, hospitals, pharmaceutical surge, health insurance) many processes were switched to online and this in a short time, which did not allow much room for safe development. This situation has been exploited by many cybercriminals. The healthcare industry faces major challenges, as cyberattacks can not only result in financial losses and privacy violations. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016/679, which will be directly applicable in all Member States by 25 May 2018, requires healthcare organisations to analyse their data flows and to reconsider how they deal with and monitor patient data to ensure that they comply with the Regulation. At the same time, the expected massive growth in data protection jobs is leading to new skills, knowledge, and skills of healthcare workers. As a result, the health sector faces the risk of a growing mismatch between the qualifications of data protection officers/employees in European countries with different occupational profiles in terms of skills and competences and, most importantly, a different level of data protection legislation. This project aims to equip the main actors with staff who will fill the gap and the identified mismatch between qualifications: - developing improved regional and supra-regional partnerships to ensure that sufficient health workers and learners can receive the right training/training based on current needs. - More systematic and coherent link between education and vocational training, with the health sector and health organisations - developing an environment that promotes the employability of workers in the health sector by providing appropriate tools to improve their working conditions and the quality of services provided. - Improving comparability and transfer of skills and competences through online training for current or future healthcare workers. - Raising awareness and improving knowledge of patient data protection and providing concrete information on legal aspects In order to achieve these objectives, the following products were created by the consortium members during the project: 1. Report on the results of the country-specific needs for the skills and knowledge of data protection officers, a Best Practice research on the training opportunities offered and a summary of a transnational professional profile. 2. Two online courses: "Specialization course on data protection in healthcare" and "Awareness Raising of data protection in healthcare" 3. A manual on how to apply the developed work-based learning (WBL) provides guidance on how to apply Mobility Tool (see point 4), videos and webinars (especially in pandemic times), as well as a guide how to perform internships in normal times. 4. A mobility tool to mediate contacts between healthcare companies and trainees or job seekers in the field of data protection. 5. Report on the specific methodology for quality assurance of educational provision. It also includes a report on the methods that training providers use to monitor the sustainability of their education offerings, as well as more far-reaching suggestions (graduate tracking). 7. A website that provides general information about the project and makes all these products publicly accessible in four languages (English, German, Greek, Romanian) without restriction of access. 8. Trainers were trained how to use the GDPR4H training material and the online courses.