The identity crisis in healthcare cybersecurity

Healthcare is advancing at an incredible pace. Digital transformation is redefining how clinicians deliver care and how organizations manage data. But as the number and type of identities multiplies—from employees, contractors, and vendors to devices and now AI agents—a silent, but significant risk grows with it.

Many healthcare organizations still rely on manual processes to manage who has access to what. The result is a widespread and dangerous problem: Overprovisioned identities, delayed clinician access, and inappropriate access to patient data. Sound familiar?

SailPoint’s new global survey, Healthcare’s blind spots: The overprovisioned identity, reveals just how widespread the challenge has become—and what leading healthcare providers are doing to regain control.

When manual processes meet modern healthcare

The report findings are stark: 73% of healthcare organizations link manual processes to overprovisioned access. Each unnecessary permission, orphaned account, or ungoverned identity creates an opportunity for attackers to exploit. The stakes couldn’t be higher when patient data is involved.

Healthcare organizations must now govern access for a diverse mix of identities:

• AI agents: 97% of providers are using or exploring them, and 81% say ungoverned AI poses significant risk to their organization.
• Machine identities: Two-thirds (66%) say machine identities are harder to manage than human identities.
• Non-employees: More than half (51%) report inappropriate access to non-employees (contractors, affiliate physicians, travel nurses) and 44% report assigning inappropriate access to supply chain vendors.
• ePHI exposure: A concerning 43% of healthcare leaders admit that electronic protected health information (ePHI) has been disclosed due to ungoverned access.

Why identity is healthcare’s new security control plane

As both human and non-human access evolve, traditional tools can’t deliver the visibility or control needed to protect sensitive data. Manual account management can’t scale to the speed and complexity of today’s healthcare environments.

That’s where modern identity security makes a difference. SailPoint helps you keep a pulse on all identities interacting with your systems and data. By leveraging automation and AI-driven intelligence, you can enforce least-privilege access and govern every identity—from clinicians and contractors to machine and AI agents.

With SailPoint, you can:

• Automate the entire identity lifecycle, from onboarding and role changes to offboarding.
• Use AI-driven analytics to detect excessive access privileges and prevent overprovisioning before it becomes a risk.
• Extend complete visibility across all identities and data—dramatically reducing the risk of ePHI exposure.
• Gain continuous insight into application inventory, ownership, user activity, and risky access.

A smarter path to reducing risk

Identity is now the foundation of a strong cybersecurity posture in healthcare. Automating governance, access control, and risk detection is no longer just a best practice—it’s essential to safeguarding patient data and maintaining trust. By modernizing identity security, you can reduce organizational risk, improve operational efficiency, and simplify compliance across the board.

Don’t let security blind spots put your organization at risk. Discover the key factors driving these identity challenges—and see how your organization compares.

To learn more, download the full report.