The health care industry is facing one of its toughest challenges yet: protecting vulnerable patient data and “connected” medical devices amid a rising tide of credible and proven cybersecurity threats. To help increase the conversation on this important topic, Vizient, Inc. will share how it is leveraging its relationships with the nation’s leading hospitals and device manufacturers to promote industry-wide collaboration aimed at mitigating the dangers of insufficient cybersecurity. The presentation is part of the agenda for the 2018 Medical Device Security 101 Conference, Jan. 15-17, 2018 in Orlando, Florida.

The 2018 Medical Device Security 101 Conference, hosted by the University of Michigan’s Archimedes Center for Medical Device Security, is a 2.5-day educational workshop for health care providers, medical device manufacturers and industry regulators to learn and speak frankly about medical device security threats and solutions. Greg Knapp, vice president, sourcing operations, business technology and support services at Vizient, will present, “The Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) Perspective: A multi-stakeholder approach to health care cybersecurity threats” at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018.

“As the nation’s largest health care performance improvement company, Vizient is working with hospitals, medical device manufacturers and medical device cybersecurity service providers to develop effective strategies that create a more secure cyber environment,” said Knapp.

About Vizient, Inc.

Vizient, Inc., the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country, provides innovative data-driven solutions, expertise and collaborative opportunities that lead to improved patient outcomes and lower costs. Vizient’s diverse membership base includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and nonacute health care providers and represents more than $100 billion in annual purchasing volume. The Vizient brand identity represents the integration of VHA Inc., University HealthSystem Consortium and Novation, which combined in 2015, as well as MedAssets’ Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) segment, including Sg2, which was acquired in 2016. In 2017, Vizient again received a World’s Most Ethical Company designation from the Ethisphere Institute. Vizient’s headquarters are in Irving, Texas, with locations in Chicago and other cities across the United States. Please visit www.vizientinc.com as well as our newsroom, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages for more information about the company.