Securing healthcare delivery in an era of rapid AI expansion.
When Wayman Cummings, CISO and CTO, stepped in to lead the security and technology teams at Ochsner Health, he embarked on a complete cybersecurity transformation. To support the health system’s rapid growth, Cummings identified key opportunities to modernize their architecture:
- Safeguard clinical mobility: Enable secure, compliant electronic health record access for clinicians across hundreds of remote endpoints and clinics.
- Secure the healthcare supply chain: Extend consistent zero-trust protections across critical third-party billing, pharmacy, and operational vendors.
- Consolidate and streamline operations: Transition from fragmented security tools to a unified platform that accelerates response times and eliminates complexity.
- Enable secure AI and cloud innovation: Establish deep visibility and guardrails so clinical teams can safely adopt modern SaaS and AI tools.
Unifying cybersecurity to protect patient data and lower costs.
Ochsner Health chose Palo Alto Networks to consolidate its security stack into a single-source partner. By combining network security, automated SOC operations, SaaS governance, and cyber threat intelligence, Ochsner replaced fragmented point solutions with a unified security model spanning on-premises facilities, AWS cloud infrastructure, and clinical workflows. This platform approach allows Ochsner’s security team to protect critical care systems while reducing overall cybersecurity spend, with $3.6M projected cost savings and $10.7M in business benefits over four years.
“Each dollar that we can save on cybersecurity is another dollar that’s available for the care of our patients. And that is what is most critical to us.”
— Wayman Cummings
CISO & CTO, Ochsner Health
-
Consistent perimeter and cloud protection with Strata network security
Each of Ochsner’s 47 hospitals and 370 clinics runs clinical applications; downtime for any of them could negatively impact patient health. To secure that footprint without managing it facility by facility, Ochsner deployed Strata network security solutions, extending the same security posture from on-premise to AWS cloud environments. The result is one security architecture applied consistently across all facilities, with the same policies, protection, and availability for clinical applications.
-
SaaS and AI risk management with CASB
Ochsner is transforming patient care with clinical AI, including a breakthrough model that slashes chemotherapy wait times by 50% for first-time treatments. Yet each innovation becomes a potential path for sensitive patient data leakage. To manage that risk, Ochsner deployed CASB security controls on its firewall infrastructure. The newfound visibility into SaaS and AI usage translates into policy the team can act on: blocking AI prompt and chat activity where needed or monitoring file uploads and redirecting employees to sanctioned applications. Rather than restrict AI adoption wholesale, Ochsner’s security team can steer it, permitting the tools clinicians and staff need while protecting the hospital system from unnecessary risk.
“There’s enormous opportunity to drive AI as a capability in healthcare, but we need to do it securely and safely for our patients and for our hospital system.”
— Wayman Cummings
CISO & CTO, Ochsner Health
-
SOC transformation and automated response with Cortex
Ochsner modernized its security operations center by consolidating its SIEM, SOAR, and third-party managed security provider into the Cortex platform, unifying alerts and telemetry into a single source of truth. Automated playbooks now handle recurring triage work such as phishing and malware investigation without requiring manual intervention at every step. Automation now resolves 75% of security cases and mean time to resolution has been cut to 15 minutes, a process that previously took hours with manual triage alone.
-
Strategic threat hunting and triage with Unit 42
To extend its internal team’s reach, Ochsner engaged Unit 42 for on-demand threat hunting and investigative support. Rather than providing a fixed menu of services, Unit 42 works as a flexible extension of Ochsner’s team, stepping in for investigations that fall outside pre-built playbooks. The support has dramatically reduced the time Ochsner’s security architects and engineers need to spend on individual investigations, freeing them to focus on root-cause risks and broader security strategy rather than case-by-case triage.
Evolving zero trust and enterprise browser security for future growth.
As Ochsner Health continues to expand healthcare access into rural communities across the Gulf South, Cummings sees Palo Alto Networks as his partner in ensuring that cybersecurity remains an enabler of that mission. Ochsner is preparing to extend zero trust access to remote workers and newly acquired organizations, replacing legacy VPN and VDI connections with secure, on-demand access to applications. The next phase will push security enforcement into the browser, enabling Ochsner to govern AI use at the point of access (regardless of device) rather than relying on network-layer controls alone.
“My vision is that Palo Alto Networks will continue to be a strong partner on this journey, expanding the technologies that help Ochsner grow to keep our communities safe and healthy.”
— Wayman Cummings
CISO & CTO, Ochsner Health
share this story
