---
title: "‘Healthcare Innovation’ Profiles Highmark FAIR Program: ‘Cybersecurity and Business Align’"
description: A leading edge effort to bring financial analysis of cyber risk to hospitals.
---

[The FAIR Institute Blog ](https://www.fairinstitute.org/blog)

# [‘Healthcare Innovation’ Profiles Highmark FAIR Program: ‘Cybersecurity and Business Align’](https://www.fairinstitute.org/blog/healthcare-innovation-profiles-highmark-fair-program-cybersecurity-and-business-align)

 Written by [Jeff B. Copeland](https://www.fairinstitute.org/blog/author/jeff-b-copeland) | Jul 23, 2019 7:17:08 PM

Just published on Healthcare Innovation, [Where Cybersecurity and Business Align: One CISO’s High-Level Perspective](https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/cybersecurity/article/21089472/where-cybersecurity-and-business-align-one-cisos-highlevel-perspective), profiles CISO Omar Khawaja’s success at introducing FAIR to Highmark Health, a leading healthcare delivery and insurance organization.

Hear Omar speak on Defining the Goals of an Effective Risk Management Program at the [FAIR Conference in September](https://www.fairinstitute.org/faircon-19). 

The article details how Omar landed on FAIR as the solution for his quest to develop a “risk-based culture rather than a [security technologies] installation-focused culture.” He eventually made it a requirement that every director and manager in the security organization get FAIR-certified “so everyone spoke a common language.”

Omar sees FAIR as the antidote to endemic pessimism in the cybersecurity profession. The cliche is that “you cannot measure ROI on security but…that’s a pessimistic viewpoint, and in reality, there is significant value in trying to quantify cyber risk…It takes time for people to be willing to stand up to those truisms.”

With a quantitative, financial approach, his team is “able to make that case [for increased cybersecurity resources] and tie it back to patient care — which is the ultimate business outcome that hospitals exist to deliver”. 

Omar’s prediction, as reported by Healthcare Innovation: “He would be shocked if in five years” the number of hospitals using FAIR “isn’t closer to 40 to 50 percent.”

Read the complete article, [Where Cybersecurity and Business Align: One CISO’s High-Level Perspective](https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/cybersecurity/article/21089472/where-cybersecurity-and-business-align-one-cisos-highlevel-perspective).

**Related: **

**[Meet a Member: Omar Khawaja, Introducing FAIR to Highmark Health](https://www.fairinstitute.org/blog/meet-a-member-omar-khawaja-introducing-fair-to-highmark-health)**

[View full post](https://www.fairinstitute.org/blog/healthcare-innovation-profiles-highmark-fair-program-cybersecurity-and-business-align)

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