Q&A with Geisinger Health System CISO Zack Gable

Though he’s just coming up on his one-year anniversary, Geisinger Health System CISO Zack Gable sounds like an executive with many more years leading security under his belt. That’s because Gable knows his job is about “business enablement,” or empowering clinicians with the tools they need to provide superior patient care, rather than putting the organization on lockdown. Of course, doing so securely is where the rub comes in and that’s why CISOs get paid the big bucks. It’s walking that fine line or balancing empowerment with enforcement, and that more and more involves getting talented niche vendors up to snuff on cyber. In this interview with healthsystemCIO Founder & Editor-in-Chief Anthony Guerra, Gable covers these issues and many more.



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TOC



Budget Cutting Keys

Managing Managed Services

AI Versus Automation

Battling IT Shadows

Communication is Key

App Rat

How Health System CISOs Have Become De Facto Vendor Consultants

Talking Business Speak



Anthony: Welcome to healthsystemCIO’s interview with Zack Gable, Chief Information Security Officer with Geisinger Health System. I’m Anthony Guerra, Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Zack, thanks for joining me.

Zack: Appreciate you having me on the podcast, Anthony.

Anthony: Let’s get right into it, Zack. You want to tell me a little bit about your organization and your role.

Zack: Yes, Geisinger Health System – we’re an integrated health system based in central northeast Pennsylvania with a couple different arms. We’ve got care delivery, an insurance plan, an academic arm, research and innovation arms as well. We’re growing in various parts of our business and that keeps us on our toes.

Anthony: Excellent, Zack. I’m going to start with an open-ended question, see what’s on your mind. What are either some of the trends you’re watching, things you’re dealing with internally and sometimes it’s not technology, sometimes it’s a governance thing, it’s a policy thing, but what are the main things that you’re thinking about today and working on?

Zack: Yes, I think if you look at the healthcare industry as a whole, and as we come out of the pandemic, the industry as a whole is seeing pretty hefty headwinds and obviously, Geisinger is not immune to that. When we think about the technology side of things, the security side of things, we’re really in a spot where we want to continue to be able to enable the business to digitally upscale and grow with the idea that technology is going to help some of that business growth, and with more technology comes the need for more security.

The goal is to continue to strike that right balance, make sure that the security function is present to support business enablement and to support secure integration and implementation of technology that’s ultimately going to improve the business overall or enable the business overall.

Anthony: Right. With headwinds, you’re talking about tough economic climate, cutting budgets, things like that?

Zack: Exactly. It’s no surprise if you look in the last two to three years, pandemic driven, whether it’s labor issues, labor cost, supply chain cost – it’s very much all of the above.

Budget Cutting Keys