Healthcare Organizations Enhance ⁣Security with Observability Tools and AIOps

Updated June 03, 2025

Healthcare⁤ organizations are ‍increasingly ⁤adopting observability tools to gain crucial visibility into operational ⁣and clinical workflows. This enhanced visibility helps prevent downtime, secure networks, and protect ⁣patient care,⁣ according to⁢ industry experts. Maintaining ⁢24/7 uptime is essential, as outages can lead to financial losses and negatively impact patient outcomes.

With hundreds of applications to monitor across diverse environments, health systems require tools that can provide comprehensive insights. Observability solutions, such as IBM Instana and Splunk Observability Cloud, offer unified visibility into healthcare networks.

Patrick Lin, senior⁤ vice president and general manager of observability at Splunk, a Cisco ⁣company, stated that observability tools provide unified visibility into operational and‍ clinical workflows. These tools optimize care delivery by collecting data insights into system behavior, Lin said.

Bill Lobig, vice president of product management for automation at IBM, emphasized the importance⁢ of protecting⁤ uptime for critical applications like patient ⁤monitoring equipment. He noted that a system failure could endanger a patient’s life.

Lobig added that ⁤observability tools can understand the interconnectivity of systems and monitor transactions and API calls. He likened the monitoring of a network’s health⁣ to⁣ monitoring a patient’s vital signs, stressing the need for IT leaders to quickly address any⁤ issues that arise.

“Knowing that there are vulnerabilities in critical places ‍or not and being able to quarantine those or⁣ take action is‍ a great way that observability tools can help healthcare applications,” Lobig said.

Addressing Observability Challenges in Healthcare

Lin noted that observability is often siloed within healthcare organizations, limiting visibility. This segmentation can ⁢lead to inefficiencies and a lack of clear ownership over issues.

He advised healthcare organizations to hold ⁣partners and vendors accountable by using code-level insights, application and hardware logs, network path tracing, and proactive monitoring of networks.

AIOps and Alert fatigue

AIOps (artificial intelligence ⁣for IT operations) helps healthcare organizations prioritize alerts and reduce false positives, according to Lin. By embedding AI within observability tools, health systems can create dynamic⁣ baselines using historical data and group alerts into events.

Lobig explained that AIOps enables health systems to self-heal by using⁤ AI and machine learning to detect and resolve issues without disruptions. AI agents can correlate details on network issues, allowing for self-diagnosis and faster problem resolution.

Key Strategies for Visibility and Security

Lin⁤ recommends a “trust but verify” approach to create⁢ a secure IT network. He also suggests that healthcare organizations engage in data-driven conversations with vendors as part of an observability center of excellence model.

Lobig highlighted the importance of open telemetry for creating a unified framework for data and automating⁣ processes. He also recommended using vulnerability management tools to filter out false⁢ positive alerts.

Configuration management databases can provide visibility by tracking devices connected to a network and identifying dormant devices. Lin added that unified platforms can enable security and IT operations teams to share ⁢data, detect incidents earlier, and improve cyber resilience.

What’s next

Healthcare organizations will likely continue to integrate advanced observability and AIOps solutions to proactively manage their IT environments, ensuring optimal performance and security.