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Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Program Supported by Sierra7, inc., is Recognized as an 8th Annual FedHealthIT Innovation Award Winner!

Falls Church, VA – 18 May 2022. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)-sponsored Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) program has been selected by a panel of current and former Federal and Industry information technology (IT) leaders as a 2022 FedHealthIT Innovation Award Winner! This award recognizes programs that leverage innovation to produce transformative health system outcomes across VA, Department of Defense (DoD), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As healthcare providers rapidly modernize healthcare IT architectures and infrastructures in response to increased patient service demand, the protection of technology enabling these goals is becoming an extraordinary challenge. Like healthcare organizations worldwide, VA faces rising cybersecurity threats which increase the risks of cybercrime, system functionality degradation, and compromised organization and patient healthcare information. As a result, VA established the IoMT program and contracted with Sierra7 and partner Palo Alto Networks to develop solutions enabling network security across the agency’s medical device architecture.

As VA accelerated its review of medical device security at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) identified roughly 800,000 IoMT devices with cybersecurity vulnerabilities across the architecture within the Medical Device Protection Program (MDPP). These vulnerabilities had exposed medical vaccine storage devices to potential threats from cybercriminals who could access and/or steal sensitive medical information, or worse, damage the devices used to store VA’s growing supply of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. To remediate these vulnerabilities, Sierra7 deployed more than 180 inspectors at 143 VA medical storage sites within four-months, and successfully integrated the Palo Alto Zingbox solution to secure individual MDPP storage units. The Zingbox solution has transformed VA’s ability to continuously monitor and protect a vital component of its health system infrastructure. Furthermore, Sierra7’s technical solution led to VA developing and maintaining new asset protection and risk management protocols across its Bio-Med and clinical enterprise. Together, these efforts enabled VA to assure the cybersecurity asset protection of all IoMT storage unit endpoints nationwide.

Michael Merrick, VA Contracting Officer Representative (COR) for IoMT says “This was a rapid major implementation project that with great teamwork we were able to provide the VA enterprise a Cyber Security posture 4 months ahead of schedule. Enabling Veteran patient medical device security and patient safety.”

G2Xchange will be honoring program award winners during their upcoming FedHealthIT Innovation Awards and Networking Event held in person on Tuesday, June 7th, 2022, from 1:30-4:30 PM EDT. Additional event details and registration information can be found here on Eventbrite.

About Sierra7

Sierra7, Inc. is a leading consultant to healthcare and federal clients providing IT, consulting, solutions, and citizen engagement services to federal agencies across the United States. As a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and CMMI-SVC Level 3-appraised member of the government technology and services industry, Sierra7 holds critical Prime contracts including T4NG, VECTOR, VHA-IHT, GSA VETS 2, NIH CIO-SP3, NASA SEWP V, VA TeleCare Companion, and several GSA schedules. Learn more at www.sierra7.com!