Project Overview

As cybersecurity threats continue to target healthcare organizations, strengthening cyber preparedness has become an essential component of organizational resilience. Recognizing this growing need within the region, I coordinated a regional cybersecurity tabletop exercise and educational program designed to help healthcare organizations better understand cyber incident response, operational continuity, executive decision-making, and cross-sector collaboration.

To provide participants with specialized cybersecurity expertise, I partnered with P5Cyber, whose cybersecurity professionals served as the primary educators and technical subject matter experts throughout the training. Together, we combined technical cyber knowledge with regional emergency preparedness planning to create a comprehensive learning experience for healthcare and community partners.

The initiative emphasized that cybersecurity is not solely an IT issue—it is an organizational resilience challenge requiring leadership, communication, continuity planning, and coordinated decision-making across the entire organization.

The Challenge

Healthcare organizations face increasingly sophisticated cyber threats that have the potential to disrupt patient care, communications, financial systems, and critical operations.

Regional partners expressed a need to better understand:
-Executive roles during cyber incidents.
-Business continuity during prolonged technology outages.
-Coordination between IT, emergency management, and leadership.
-Healthcare operational impacts of ransomware and other cyberattacks.
-Communication strategies during cyber emergencies.
-Regional coordination and information sharing.

While many organizations had technical cybersecurity resources, there was a growing need to integrate cybersecurity into broader emergency preparedness and continuity planning efforts.

My Approach

As Regional Healthcare Coordinator and Exercise Director, I led the planning, coordination, and implementation of the regional initiative while partnering with P5Cyber to deliver specialized cybersecurity education.

Key responsibilities included:
-Identifying cybersecurity preparedness as an emerging regional priority through coalition engagement and partner feedback.
-Establishing and coordinating the partnership with P5Cyber to provide technical expertise and industry-leading instruction.
-Collaborating with regional hospitals, public health agencies, emergency management, and cybersecurity professionals to define exercise goals and learning objectives.
-Designing the overall exercise structure and integrating cybersecurity concepts into regional preparedness planning.
-Coordinating multidisciplinary participation across healthcare organizations and community partners.
-Managing event planning, logistics, communications, registration, and stakeholder coordination.
-Facilitating collaboration between technical experts and emergency preparedness professionals to ensure the exercise addressed both cybersecurity operations and organizational resilience.
-Leading post-exercise discussions, collecting participant feedback, and identifying opportunities for future regional preparedness initiatives.

While P5Cyber led the majority of the technical education and cybersecurity instruction during the training, my role focused on bringing the right partners together, aligning the initiative with regional preparedness priorities, and ensuring the exercise translated technical concepts into practical actions healthcare organizations could apply within their emergency management and continuity programs.

Results & Impact

The initiative increased regional awareness of cybersecurity preparedness while strengthening collaboration between healthcare organizations, emergency management professionals, executive leadership, and cybersecurity specialists.

Key accomplishments included:
-Introduced healthcare partners to current cybersecurity threats and best practices through expert-led instruction by P5Cyber.
-Strengthened collaboration between healthcare emergency managers, information technology professionals, executive leadership, and public health agencies.
-Increased understanding of cybersecurity as an organizational resilience and business continuity issue—not solely an information technology function.
-Encouraged organizations to integrate cybersecurity planning into existing emergency preparedness and continuity programs.
-Identified opportunities for continued regional collaboration, future exercises, and ongoing cybersecurity education.
-Expanded the coalition's preparedness focus to include emerging cyber risks affecting healthcare operations.

Skills Demonstrated:
-Regional Program Management
-Strategic Partnership Development
-Stakeholder Engagement
-Multi-Agency Coordination
-Exercise Planning & Facilitation
-Organizational Resilience
-Healthcare Preparedness
-Business Continuity Planning
-Executive Facilitation
-Event & Logistics Management
-Strategic Communications
-Cross-Sector Collaboration
-Continuous Improvement

Key Takeaways

Preparing organizations for cyber incidents requires more than technical expertise—it requires collaboration between cybersecurity professionals, healthcare leaders, emergency managers, and operational decision-makers. This initiative demonstrated the value of combining specialized subject matter expertise with strong regional coordination to create practical, actionable learning opportunities. By partnering with P5Cyber and bringing together organizations from across the region, we strengthened awareness of cybersecurity risks while helping healthcare leaders better integrate cyber preparedness into their broader resilience and continuity planning.