The Digital Strategikon
Insights for the defenders of healthcare IT
Strategy, cybersecurity, and operational wisdom — drawn from the field and from a thousand years of defense-in-depth thinking.
MFA for Healthcare: Where It Matters Most and Where Clinics Get It Wrong
Multi-factor authentication is the single highest-leverage security control a medical or dental practice can deploy. Here is where it matters most — and the gaps that quietly leave clinics exposed.
Read the essayWhy Guest Wi-Fi Should Never Touch Your Clinical Network
A flat network is a quiet liability. Here is why network segmentation — keeping guest Wi-Fi, patient devices, IoT, and medical equipment away from clinical systems — is one of the most important architecture decisions a practice makes.
Cyber Insurance, HIPAA, and the New Baseline for Healthcare Security
Cyber insurers now expect MFA, EDR, tested backups, patching, incident response, and vendor oversight before they'll write a policy. The good news: those same controls map directly to HIPAA expectations.
HIPAA Security Rule 2026: What Small Medical and Dental Practices Need to Know Now
There are two layers to the HIPAA Security Rule landscape in 2026: the current enforceable rule and a proposed update from HHS. Here is a calm, practical breakdown of what's required today and what's coming.
Why Your HIPAA Risk Analysis Cannot Be a Checkbox Exercise
A HIPAA risk analysis is not a form to fill out once a year. It's a structured process of technical discovery, ePHI mapping, vulnerability assessment, and remediation tracking — and the difference matters when OCR comes asking.
Where Is Your ePHI? A Practical Guide to Asset Inventories and Network Maps
Most clinics dramatically underestimate how many systems touch protected health information. A current asset inventory and network map are the foundation of security — and an expected control under the proposed HIPAA rule.
The 72-Hour Recovery Conversation Every Healthcare Practice Should Have
If your systems went down right now, how would you still see patients? A practical look at downtime, backups, EHR access, phones, imaging, claims, prescriptions, and emergency-mode operations.
Encryption at Rest and in Transit: What That Actually Means for a Doctor's Office
Encryption sounds technical, but for a practice it comes down to concrete questions about laptops, servers, email, backups, cloud storage, VPNs, and messaging. Here's what the terms actually mean for you.
HIPAA Incident Response: What Happens in the First 24 Hours Matters
When a security incident hits a practice, the first 24 hours shape everything that follows. A practical guide to reporting paths, containment, escalation, insurer notice, evidence handling, and keeping patient care going.
Business Associates, BAAs, and MSPs: Who Is Responsible for What?
A signed Business Associate Agreement does not magically make a vendor secure. Here's what a BAA actually does, what it doesn't, and why your practice still needs real oversight and documentation.
The Digital Strategikon: Origins and Historical Significance
How a 6th-century Byzantine military manual on defense-in-depth and layered fortification maps perfectly onto modern cybersecurity doctrine.
Modern IT Operations: Best Practices for 2025
A practical framework for healthcare practices to manage IT operations in 2025 — monitoring, automation, patching, and building resilience without an enterprise budget.
HIPAA Compliance for Small Clinics: A Practical Guide
A plain-English breakdown of HIPAA's four rules, what they mean for small practices, and where to focus your compliance energy first.
EDR vs. Traditional Antivirus: What Should Your Organization Choose?
Traditional antivirus catches known threats. EDR catches what antivirus misses. Here's what the difference means for a healthcare practice in 2025.
Cost Optimization in Cloud and On-Premises IT: A Strategic Approach
Healthcare practices often overpay for IT infrastructure or underpay in ways that create risk. Here's how to find and close those gaps strategically.
VoIP Reliability and Call Quality: Engineering Excellence for Healthcare
Poor call quality in a healthcare practice isn't just an annoyance — it disrupts patient communication and erodes trust. Here's how to engineer VoIP that actually works.
Security Awareness Training That Actually Works: Beyond Click-Through Compliance
Annual click-through training satisfies an auditor but doesn't change behavior. Here's what security awareness that actually reduces risk looks like in a healthcare practice.
The 3-2-1-1-0 Backup Strategy: Why Your Data Deserves Better Than Hope
Hope is not a backup strategy. The 3-2-1-1-0 rule is — and it's the standard that separates practices that survive ransomware from the ones that pay the ransom.
Building a Secure Remote Work Stack: Beyond VPN and Hope
A VPN alone doesn't make remote work secure. Here's how healthcare practices can build a remote access architecture that protects ePHI without destroying the user experience.
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