Hospitals are becoming hackers’ favorite target, but downtime simply isn’t an option

Healthcare IT finds itself at a critical intersection where significant data opportunities are colliding with escalating cybersecurity threats.

Rural and community hospitals, in particular, are facing intense cost strains as ransomware attacks proliferate. The challenge for healthcare providers is that their expertise lies in clinical care, not IT services, making system resiliency more vital than ever, according to Erik Littlejohn (pictured, left), president and chief executive officer of CloudWave, formerly Park Place International LLC. Electronic health record and electronic medical record systems are particularly high-stakes targets — and when they go down, the consequences extend far beyond IT disruption.

“You see, just on a weekly basis, healthcare [is] under assault from a cybersecurity perspective. A lot of bad actors getting in, ransomware, et cetera,” Littlejohn told theCUBE. “These EHR systems, EMR systems, are just so critical that they can’t sustain downtime. I think a lot of the themes you hear here [at .NEXT] — resiliency, recovery — are so important to healthcare.”

Littlejohn and Mike Donahue (right), chief operating officer of CloudWave, spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier and co-host Alison Kosik at Nutanix .NEXT, for an exclusive interview on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the impact of shadow AI on patient data and simplifying infrastructure for healthcare providers. (* Disclosure below.)

Protecting healthcare IT infrastructure from shadow AI

Shadow AI has a new home: the hospital. Every time a clinician pastes patient notes into ChatGPT seeking a faster diagnosis, protected health information slips quietly outside the firewall — untracked, ungoverned and out of compliance, according to Donahue. CloudWave, a healthcare-focused managed service provider, is focused on helping these organizations build governance practices and guardrails to prevent data leaks while still using the technology as a force multiplier for overextended staff.

“Staffing levels continue to be one of the biggest challenges – even if you can obtain staff, it’s [about] keeping and retaining that staff,” Donahue said. “Their business is clinical care. They have a job to take care of the patients and serve that community — and IT becomes a cost center.”

In community and rural hospitals, healthcare IT doesn’t just compete for budget — it competes for attention. To address these operational burdens, CloudWave is migrating customers to the Nutanix Inc. private cloud platform with the goal of providing a solution that drives down operating costs for providers. This allows hospital staff to focus their attention where it matters most, according to Littlejohn. 

“IT staff want to be spending [time] with clinicians, helping them with their workflow,” Littlejohn said. “What they don’t want to be doing is worrying about a hypervisor and an underlying upgrade or a change that doesn’t provide a lot of clinical or operational value.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Nutanix .NEXT:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Nutanix .NEXT 2026. Sponsors of theCUBE’s event coverage do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE