Collaboration and Contact Center Security & Compliance in Healthcare

Author: Irwin Lazar, President and Principal Analyst

Healthcare organizations face an increasingly strict regulatory environment. Despite these heightened requirements and persistent cyberattacks, our research
data shows that healthcare organizations are often lagging in protecting their workplace collaboration and contact center environments. In our global Workplace Collaboration and Contact Center Security: 2026 research study of 305 companies (roughly 10% of which are in the healthcare sector), we found:

• Only 35% of healthcare organizations currently have a structured security plan for workplace collaboration, significantly lagging the 53.2% seen in this study’s high-performing success group
• Only 45% of healthcare organizations intend to implement a security plan by the end of 2026. The current lack of a defined strategy—particularly for the 27.8% that have no contact center security plan at all—increases the risk of data loss and significant compliance violations
• Just 30% of healthcare organizations have deployed third-party workplace collaboration security platforms, and only 27.8% are using a third-party platform to protect their contact center environment, compared with roughly half of companies in our success group

Healthcare companies often face a critical gap in organizational oversight: Only 60% of their chief information security officers (CISOs) have final approval authority over application purchases, compared to 73.5% of CISOs at successful companies. This lack of centralized sign-off creates a risk of missing vital security requirements during the selection of phone systems, video platforms, and team collaboration apps.

For healthcare leaders who have established security plans, the primary focus areas for 2026 are generative artificial intelligence (AI) security (70.6%), employee identity and access management, or IdAM (64.7%), and remote worker protection (52.9%). These priorities reflect a proactive shift to manage the risks associated with rapid AI adoption and the potential for inadvertent data loss in a distributed work environment.

Healthcare collaboration, customer experience (CX), IT, and business leaders must do more to ensure a proactive security environment. They must ensure a secure
environment that enables their organizations to rapidly take advantage of emerging technologies, especially AI, to improve business operations while minimizing risk and ensuring compliance.

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• The Security and Compliance Imperative for Healthcare
• It Starts with Organization
• The Importance of Planning
• Leveraging Third-Party Security & Compliance Tools
• Conclusion and Recommendations
• Working With Metrigy