HIROC Conference 2025: Improving Resilience with Board Leadership and Cyber Security
“HIROC was born out of an insurance crisis in the ‘80s, so we are truly a made-in-Canada solution,” said CEO Catherine Gaulton during the opening of this year’s HIROC AGM & Conference. “But what makes us unique is that we are the brainchild of a group of healthcare organizations and leaders who came together to put the needs of our community first.”
What’s special for Catherine, the board, and her leadership team is that even after 38 years, HIROC’s is a model that is envied across the insurance sector. “Your needs continue to guide our strategy, and we aim to actively listen and hear what you value, in turn driving impact where you want to see it,” she added.
And that’s the difference when it comes to HIROC, sharing the successes of HIROC Subscribers so everyone can scale learnings. Ultimately, we are partnering to create the safest healthcare system.
This is part one of our conference recap series, focusing on board leadership and cyber security, covering challenges and opportunities in healthcare, emerging trends, and preparing for a cyber breach.
Leadership and Governance in Evolving Times
Catherine moderated this panel with the following speakers (L-R):
- Dr. David Pichora, President and CEO, Kingston Health Sciences Centre, and HIROC Board Chair
- Sherri McCullough, Board Chair, Kingston Health Sciences Centre
- Dr. Krista Jangaard, President and CEO, IWK Health
- Jen Feron, General Counsel, IWK Health and HIROC Board Member
Top challenges facing healthcare organizations include healthcare human resources and access to healthcare, especially for minority populations. To tackle these, ensure your organization’s employees have psychological safety and sustainable workloads, and consider a variety of accessible options for the community such as virtual care.
Despite these challenges organizations are fostering research and innovation, expanding programs, and hiring staff with different scopes of practice. The people are also a reason to be optimistic. “There’s something really special about people who work in healthcare and their commitment to patients and coworkers,” Feron said.
The speakers then offered advice for board members or those considering joining one in the future. Being on a board takes time and dedication—getting over a learning curve, continuous engagement, fiduciary duties, and work are required. “We shouldn't forget that boards are the ultimate responsible authority for a corporation, and sometimes they need to make the difficult decisions that the CEOs can't or shouldn't,” Pichora highlighted.
Members must also have leadership skills, build relationships with the other board members and senior leadership, and provide input on the organization’s strategy. “There is no question that is a silly question in our boardroom. People are encouraged to participate,” McCullough said.
Finally, the panel spoke about ways to stay on top of emerging trends like AI and cyber security. Before adopting new technology ensure you have a basic understanding of it and relevant policies in place. Hosting learning sessions for the board on these topics and doing tabletop exercises with your IT team, HIROC, and other experts is also useful. When speaking about the role of technology, Jangaard shared, “You need to remember healthcare is a personal interactional relationship. Let’s not lose what is essential to healthcare, which is the clinician to patient relationship.”
Claims Trends and Cyber Breach Preparedness
Cyber liability has been the top risk in Subscribers’ minds for many years and is the third most costly claim for HIROC annually.
To help you strengthen your organization’s cyber security, Gareth Lewis, HIROC’s Vice President, Claims, and Daniel Michaluk, National Co-Leader, Privacy & Cybersecurity at BLG, shared cyber risk mitigation strategies.
One recommendation is partnering with a breach coach—legal advisors with experience responding to cyber incidents in healthcare who can anticipate what’s next and guide teams on best practices.
To prepare for a cyber breach, your organization should
- Do tabletop exercises
- Have the IT department map out all your organization's services so they know which will and won’t be accessible if your whole network goes down
- Assess your IT infrastructure for gaps by using internal cyber security frameworks, outside vendors who can help test your systems, and multi-factor authentication
- Check out HIROC’s Resources page and the Ontario Health Cyber Security Centre for more resources
If your organization does experience a cyber breach, these first steps are critical.
- Conduct a rapid triage assessment with your IT department to identify the unusual activity
- Maintain open communication with your CEO
- Forcefully contain the breach by disconnecting all devices from the network
- Declare an emergency
- Call HIROC and your cyber breach coach
However, while it is critical to get services back up and running quickly, is it important to investigate the breach first while the evidence is still there to find out exactly what happened.
Coming Together to Strengthen Healthcare
Thank you to everyone who spent their day with us at the conference—and a special thank you to our amazing speakers, organizers, and volunteers who made it a success! We hope you enjoyed a day of learning and networking. Stay tuned for part two from the conference!
Check out parts two and three from the Conference:
HIROC Conference 2025: Safety Grants Supporting Innovation
HIROC Conference 2025: AI in Healthcare
By Gillian Brandon-Hart, Communications and Marketing Specialist, HIROC