Sector view

Healthcare

Clinical data raises the bar on every control, and the entity classification decides how far that bar moves.

The reality

Healthcare providers and health technology suppliers in Abu Dhabi operate under a mandatory standard rather than a voluntary one, and the depth of control expected follows from the entity classification assigned to them. The same technical control that satisfies an ordinary business is judged more strictly when the record is clinical, because the consequence of disclosure is different.

How the work is organised

Confirm the entity classification first, because it determines the scope of everything that follows. Then assess against the standard as it applies at that classification, and treat third parties handling health information as in scope rather than adjacent to it.

The trap we see most often

Beginning control implementation before confirming classification. Organisations that do this routinely protect the right data to the wrong depth, then discover the gap during assessment when remediation is most expensive.