CloudWave’s 2026 Predictions for Healthcare IT, Part 1: Cyber Resilience Will Replace Uptime as the New Benchmark

In 2026, emerging cybersecurity trends will reshape how healthcare organizations approach data protection and patient care. As the threat landscape evolves faster than traditional defenses can keep pace, healthcare leaders will need to prioritize cyber resilience, artificial intelligence-powered security solutions, and staying ahead of the curve to safeguard patient care. From the dissolution of traditional security perimeters to the rise of managed security partnerships, this year’s predictions highlight the critical steps healthcare organizations must take to ensure the security and integrity of their critical systems and data, as well as recognize cybersecurity as a core patient safety function.

In the first part of our series, we will discuss cyber resilience. The healthcare IT industry will begin to witness a shift in 2026, from traditional uptime metrics to cyber resilience, moving from “how often are we up?” to “how quickly can we recover?” Resilience will become a measurable service outcome.

Recognizing that cyberattacks can have clinical and financial implications, healthcare organizations will increasingly prioritize resilience over uptime. New regulatory proposals, such as the HIPAA 72-hour rule, solidify this. If adopted, the rule would require healthcare organizations to restore critical data such as EHR systems within 72 hours of a cyberattack or system failure. This proposed ruling aims to ensure minimal downtime and uninterrupted patient care by requiring organizations to have robust backup and recovery plans for electronic protected health information (ePHI) and other critical systems. In the Epic space, the concept of isolated recovery environments (IREs) is gaining traction. These environments provide a subset of essential EHR functions to enable clinicians to provide continuous care during disruptions.

However, before healthcare organizations can respond to new regulations, demonstrate compliance, or build the resilience needed to withstand cyber disruption, they need to answer a deceptively simple question: Do you know what you’re protecting? For most healthcare organizations, the answer is no.

Healthcare organizations will need to assess their current cybersecurity posture and develop comprehensive risk and recovery plans to effectively prepare for and respond to emerging threats. This approach includes:

• Conducting thorough risk assessments and tabletop exercises to identify gaps and deficiencies
• Implementing managed security services such as disaster recovery, cloud hosting, and backup solutions to ensure compliance while implementing a thorough recovery plan for rapid restoration
• Providing proactive technologies such as continuous monitoring and threat detection to prevent cyber events

As cyber resilience becomes the new benchmark, healthcare boards and CISOs will treat cybersecurity as a core patient safety function, not just an IT risk. Resilience will be measured by prioritizing continuity of care and trust.

In 2026, we predict that organizations will shift their focus from compliance to demonstrable resilience, driving investments in cybersecurity and IT infrastructure.

Tim Quigley
Chief Client Officer

Interested in exploring this topic in more depth? Check out our article, The Visibility Gap in Healthcare Security: Why Resilience Starts with Seeing Clearly