Healthcare Administration Leadership & Management Journal
Anatomy of an Incident Response Plan: A Five-Step Guide for Medical Practices
In 2025, 444 U.S. healthcare breaches impacted 36M people. This article outlines five steps clinics can take to build effective cyber incident response plans.
January/February 2026 Vol. 4, No. 1 pp. 32–33 DOI: 10.55834/halmj.5917705099
Abstract
In the first half of 2025 alone, 444 healthcare breaches in the United States affected more than 36 million individuals, underscoring the near unavoidability of cyber incidents in the sector. This article details how clinics can act today to ensure faster recovery and less downtime when tomorrow’s inevitable cyber attack occurs. The five steps — identifying and ranking risks; allocating resources; assigning stakeholder roles; pressure-testing the plan; and conducting post-incident debriefs — provide a practical framework for developing a strong incident response strategy. Each phase is designed to bring order to chaos, ensuring that critical systems, patient data, and operations are swiftly restored.
