Cybersecurity in Digital Transformation in Healthcare : A Systematic Literature Review (Preprint)
Authors: Amnah Alharbi Amnah , Alkhalifah Ali 
Published: November 2024

BACKGROUND

In an era of rapid digital transformation, the healthcare sector stands as a beacon of innovation, leveraging the latest technologies to improve patient care, streamline operations, and revolutionize the way healthcare services are delivered. As such, healthcare organizations are prime targets for cyberattacks. This is primarily due to their unique, distinct weaknesses and attractiveness to malicious cybercriminals.

OBJECTIVE

The current study’s contribution is conducting the first SLR to explore the factors influencing the cybersecurity of digital transformation in healthcare. This review examines digital technologies in healthcare, their roles, and the challenges encountered. Emerging approaches to addressing cybersecurity issues and enhancing protection and privacy within healthcare systems are discussed. This study contributes to the research field, providing valuable insights for other researchers and facilitating further investigation into the cybersecurity of digital transformation, and improving the understanding of how to protect this critical sector’s data and systems.

METHODS

The current research follows a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology, with this review being a systematic, explicit, comprehensive, and reproducible approach to evaluating, identifying, and synthesizing existing research literature.

RESULTS

From the 90 studies, 24 factors affecting cybersecurity and digital transformation in healthcare were analyzed by being classified into positive and negative factors and according to their type of impact, that is, direct, indirect, partial or no impact. Based on each study, the factors were classified into three main types: individual factors, related to individuals’ knowledge, awareness, and behaviors towards cybersecurity; organizational factors, related to the role of the organization, internal policies, organizational culture, and effective risk management; and technical factors, comprising all aspects related to technology, such as systems and devices. Understanding these factors helps to enhance cybersecurity and improve digital transformation in the healthcare sector. The most common factors in examining the reviewed studies are cybersecurity training and awareness, trust, and privacy concerns.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study conducted a systematic literature review to identify the factors influencing cybersecurity in digital transformation, the methods used to protect systems, and the research gaps in cybersecurity within the healthcare sector. The review analyzed high-quality studies in the literature published in high-impact journals indexed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) to ensure quality and credibility.
The review paper attempted to answer the research questions by examining a total of 90 articles that covered studies related to digital transformation and cybersecurity in the healthcare sector. This study comprehensively answered the following questions: What are the factors influencing cybersecurity in digital transformation of healthcare? What is the role of digital technologies in healthcare?

This analysis of prior studies revealed some research gaps. Also, This paper provides some issues and offers suggestions for future research. This review paper contributes to the research on cybersecurity for digital transformation in the healthcare sector and can help other researchers in future investigations towards this area.