Alert fatigue is a growing concern in cybersecurity, especially for businesses managing their own Security Operations Centers (SOC). With the constant influx of alerts from Endpoint Monitoring services, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems, and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) logs, security teams often find themselves overwhelmed. When every ping demands attention, it’s easy for critical threats to slip through the cracks.
The Evolution of Security Operations Centers in Healthcare
The evolution of Security Operation Centers (SOCs) in healthcare focuses on safeguarding patient data and meeting strict regulations like HIPAA. Modern SOCs leverage AI and machine learning for advanced threat detection, addressing challenges like securing legacy systems and connected medical devices.
Collaboration between IT and clinical teams is crucial to creating holistic security strategies. Managed SOC services can ease workloads for internal teams while ensuring strong, tailored cybersecurity defenses. This shift highlights the importance of proactive, collaborative approaches to meet healthcare’s unique security needs.
For example, I work with a healthcare company that focuses on big computation data for cancer patients powered by machine learning and generative AI, that company we are monitoring on a monthly basis will generate at least 32 million events per account. Of those events, about 45 alerts are generated daily and on average 1350 alerts are generated monthly. 50% of those alerts are going to security related events that require investigation, follow-up, and in some incidents a full-scale response plan triggered that will bring together all hands-on deck.
If investigations take on average 4-8hours, that’s 180-360 hours per day required to thoroughly review, collaborate and resolve. Staffing a in-house team would be costly so a third-party security team would be a cheaper alternative to automate and highlight security issues that require attention and eliminate the noise of alerts.
The Challenge with Traditional In-House SOCs
While in-house SOCs provide dedicated security focus, their primary responsibility is maintaining systems—not necessarily fine-tuning alerts or questioning their validity with a partner-level scrutiny. The need to balance daily operations and system maintenance leaves limited time for proactive threat analysis, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities for optimization.
Additionally, operating an in-house SOC is expensive. As businesses scale, the cost of hiring, training, and retaining a full-fledged security team grows exponentially. Many smaller healthcare companies lack the resources to support such expansions, and gaps in security and compliance can form, leaving businesses and sensitive healthcare data vulnerable to cyber attacks.
The Value of a Partnered SOC Approach
Healthcare organizations seeking relief from alert fatigue and operational overhead can turn to partnered SOC solutions. By offloading SOC workloads to experienced security service providers, businesses gain access to a larger team of specialized analysts at a fraction of the cost of maintaining an in-house operation. This strategic approach not only enhances security effectiveness but also reduces financial strain.
Dedicated healthcare cybersecurity companies, such as ClearDATA, specialize in HITRUST compliance and healthcare security, ensuring focused expertise in regulatory security needs. These partnerships bring depth to threat intelligence, quicker reaction times, and a refined approach to alert management—leading to stronger overall defense strategies.
SOC Vendor Consideration Matrix
| Considerations | In-House SOC | ClearDATA SOC |
| Control & Customization | In-house is going to provide the highest degree of controls. In-house operationally will be a large cost to run. Example, 5 FTE employees would be bare min to a 24/7 SOC. | Outsourced vendors provide a joint incident response plan that tailors the escalation path and the actions required to be performed. Outsourced SOC’s are generally operated 24/7, and have a much larger and dedicated pool of SOC employees. |
| Time to Value | Months (or longer) to hire staff, deploy technology, and tune detections before full coverage. | Rapid deployment—weeks to go live with monitoring and response capabilities. |
| Control and Customization | Full control over tooling, processes, data handling, and priorities. SOC can be tailored to exact organizational needs. | Predefined playbooks and processes. Limited customization, though some providers adapt to healthcare-specific workflows. |
| Talent and Staffing | Requires hiring, training, and retaining cybersecurity analysts, engineers, and managers—high turnover risk in a tight labor market. | Access to a team of certified experts (CISSP, CCSP, HCISPP). Eliminates staffing shortages and reduces HR overhead. |
| Scalability and Flexibility | Scaling requires more staff and infrastructure. Expansion into new clouds, workloads, or geographies adds cost and complexity. | Elastic scaling. Can quickly cover new cloud accounts, M&A integrations, or increased log volume with predictable cost. |
| Threat Detection and Response | Dependent on in-house staff skill and bandwidth. May be limited by alert fatigue and coverage gaps. | 24/7 monitoring with global threat intelligence. Faster MTTR with automated playbooks and dedicated incident responders. |
| Operational Cost | High fixed costs (salaries, benefits, training, infrastructure, licenses). ROI depends on scale and maturity. | Predictable subscription or usage-based costs. Typically lower upfront investment but can increase with log volume or advanced services. |
When evaluating security operations strategies, healthcare organizations often face the decision of whether to build an in-house SOC or partner with an outsourced provider. An in-house SOC is typically best suited for larger organizations with deep budgets, advanced cybersecurity expertise, and a need for maximum control over protected health information (PHI) and regulatory processes.
However, for most providers, payers, and life sciences companies, an outsourced SOC offers a more cost-effective and scalable option. With faster time to value, built-in healthcare compliance expertise, and 24/7 monitoring and response—without the staffing and retention challenges—outsourced SOCs can provide a strong balance of security, efficiency, and peace of mind.
The Role of AI in SOC Operations
Artificial Intelligence is shaping the future of intelligent monitoring. AI-driven security solutions provide automated threat detection, enhanced pattern recognition, and predictive analytics. However, AI is not foolproof—its effectiveness depends on the quality of its training data and ongoing refinements. A partnered SOC ensures that AI-driven monitoring is supplemented by human expertise, bridging gaps where automation may fall short.
AI Supported Security Operations Centers
AI compliance in healthcare requires specialized knowledge and tools. ClearDATA understands the unique requirements of healthcare organizations utilizing AI to advance patient and business outcomes.
Our approach includes:
- Comprehensive Risk Assessments: ClearDATA conducts a comprehensive Security Risk Assessments to analyze potential compliance risks across multiple platforms and data sources.
- Ongoing Monitoring: Our team works alongside yours to ensure the right risks are addressed at the right time, keeping your cloud environments secure, compliant, and resilient while leveraging AI to advance your business.
- Automated Reporting: Generated compliance reports that save time and reduce human error.
- Proactive Guidance: Cloud-specific Compliance Risk Assessments (CRAs) that help ClearDATA customers maintain healthcare security and compliance in the cloud, ensuring auditability and control over PHI.
When new tools emerge, such as Amazon Bedrock, we provide practical guidance through our CRAs to help healthcare organizations leverage these innovations safely.
Transform Security Operations for Healthcare for your Multi-Cloud Strategy
Alert fatigue is a real challenge for healthcare organizations, as teams are overwhelmed by signals from endpoint monitoring tools, SIEMs, and MDR logs. In-house SOCs, while dedicated, often focus more on system upkeep than on questioning or fine-tuning alerts, leaving organizations reactive instead of proactive.
Running an internal SOC is also costly and hard to scale. By partnering with a specialized SOC, businesses can reduce overhead while gaining access to a larger team of analysts at a more competitive price.
Trust ClearDATA for your Healthcare Security Operations Center
ClearDATA healthcare-specific expertise, including HITRUST and regulatory compliance, ensuring both security and adherence. AI-driven monitoring is valuable, but partnering with a specialized SOC takes it a step further by delivering faster, more effective responses. This partnership minimizes alert fatigue and allows organizations to dedicate their energy to patient care and innovation.
A well-structured security strategy involves balancing technology, expert human oversight, and operational efficiency. By leveraging partnered SOC solutions, businesses can overcome alert fatigue, improve threat response times, and strengthen their overall security posture—all while reducing overhead costs.
