When a cyberattack hits a small healthcare provider, the damage goes far beyond locked screens and frozen systems. For independent practices and community clinics, a breach can trigger days or even weeks of operational paralysis. Staff are forced into manual workarounds, patient records become harder to access, revenue slows to a trickle, and morale begins to erode.
In an interview with HIMSS TV, Danielle Morrison, National Manager of Healthcare IT Services at All Covered, explains what really happens inside small organizations lacking in healthcare cybersecurity solutions once a security incident occurs. From the immediate chaos of day one to the long-term financial and community impact, Morrison outlines the operational, clinical, and economic toll that breaches can take, particularly when providers underestimate their risk or lack the resources to recover quickly.
Below are some choice moments, but you can find the full interview here.
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“What happens to operations at these small organizations when security incidents last for days and could take weeks to recover?”
Morrison: “The first day is always complete chaos. And it doesn’t necessarily get better in these smaller organizations. It brings down the staff’s morale, it brings down the overall cultural sup[port structure within the organizations because you have people who are working outside of their scope, things are so disrupted that they’re bringing in a lot of other manual tasks within the organization, so it’s just, the disruption is so significant. And it’s unfortunate to these orgs too that, sometimes they think it won’t happen to them. And when it does sometimes there’s disbelief that just takes a little bit longer to wrap their heads around, and as time moves around, sometimes they’re not as quick to adapt, to bring up new solutions, new workarounds to get through their daily operations.”
“What are doctors and caregivers at these organizations, their top concerns during these outages, and what’s the experience like for them?”
Morrison: "If you think of a patient when they come into a physician’s practice, they’re relying on [the physician] in some capacity because they’ve got a long-standing relationship with them to know their medications to know their allergies…. There’s safety concerns there.”
“Sometimes these smaller practices, those providers are also the business owners. So they’re literally watching the rest of their revenue stream come to a halt, while also watching they’re staff become less productive. So it’s a twofold concern of not only their patient care, but then also around the rest of their business.”
“What kind of toll do these events take on revenue?”
Morrison: "What's not taken into account is the cost of recovery from the event, the cost of the downtime, the cost of the disruptions to the staff, the other tasks that need to take place in order to keep your business running, such as rescheduling staff, and reaching out to other organizations to get records. All these things take time, which adds to the cost."
“Are you seeing closures because of these outages? Is it actually tanking some of these organizations?"
Morrison: “Unfortunately, sometimes it does. the cost of recovery is insurmountable, and they never get caught back up and eventually do have to shutter their business. Which is unfortunate if you’re a community provider for care services, and especially in smaller communities when that happens. It’s just a disservice to the community as a whole.”
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For small healthcare organizations, a security breach is a clinical, operational, and financial crisis. As Morrison describes, the disruption touches every corner of the practice: patient safety concerns rise, productivity drops, recovery costs mount, and in some cases, businesses never fully rebound.
Perhaps most concerning is the ripple effect. When a small provider closes its doors, entire communities, especially those in rural or underserved areas, can lose access to trusted care. The lesson is clear: cybersecurity resilience isn’t optional for small practices.
Investing in preparedness today may be the difference between temporary disruption and permanent closure tomorrow. All Covered's free Healthcare Network Security Analysis provides a clear map of your current security posture, along with a prioritized risk remediation plan and even insights on where unnecessary IT costs can be reduced. For more information, reach out to an expert today.
