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ES On March 20, 2024, DDS-MAP organized a co-creation workshop at University College Dublin (UCD) with seven critical care nurses and two PhD students in nursing to explore specific educational needs regarding cybersecurity in healthcare. The workshop aimed to reveal the practical cybersecurity concerns that healthcare professionals encounter daily, while gathering insights to shape our upcoming learning module on cybersecurity. Through a series of interactive activities, participants shared perspectives on digital technology (DT) use, explored vulnerabilities, and generated ideas on educational tools that would best support cybersecurity practices in critical care.
Workshop Structure and Activities
The workshop was designed in three phases to facilitate comprehensive discussion and engagement.
- Setting the Scene: To introduce the topic, facilitators presented a brief overview of current cybersecurity issues in healthcare. Following, participants discussed their personal experiences and perceptions of cybersecurity risks in their work environment.
- Storytelling as Data: Participants documented their daily DT interactions, detailing specific moments when cybersecurity felt relevant. A “pain points” exercise allowed participants to step into the role of a cyber-attacker, providing an opportunity to understand cybersecurity issues from an embodied and empathically connected perspective. This highlighted the participant’s top concerns and potential threats within their typical work activities, and from here a list of critical cybersecurity risks from their perspective was created.
- Prototyping Solutions: In the final phase, participants shared specific ideas on how cybersecurity training could be structured, suggesting practical solutions for critical care staff. They explored different learning modalities, such as digital or analog delivery methods, or interactive versus static presentations, and in this way generated recommendations to orient the development of the DDS-MAP micro-credential modules.
Main Insights from the Workshop
The co-creation process yielded several key insights:
- Empathy in Digital Interactions: The workshop reinforced the need to connect healthcare professionals’ thoughts and feelings with their cybersecurity practices. By mapping out daily routines and reflecting on cybersecurity-related emotions, participants highlighted the emotional drivers that impact digital security behaviors.
- Real-World Relevance through Student-Centric Design: Using a student-centric approach allowed participants to act as experts in their daily routines, yielding practical insights that traditional, top-down approaches might miss. Participants valued the opportunity to view themselves as cybersecurity “insiders” which enriched the discussion and revealed unique security gaps.
- Prevalent Cybersecurity Concerns: The nurses and students emphasized concerns around secure digital communication, particularly email and messaging apps. This highlighted the critical role of secure information exchange in healthcare and reaffirmed the need for targeted, practical cybersecurity guidance.
Recommendations for Future Cybersecurity Education
Relying on the natural pattern-making ability of one mind may limit or disrupt the capacity of a collective to produce knowledge that is empathetically connected. In this workshop, participants collectively agreed that games and simulations were a preferred learning format. Furthermore, quizzes were the most frequently referenced assessment preference. Recognizing the nuanced nature of their work, participants also advocated for training that respects their experience and busy schedules, with content tailored to support accessibility, through online and hybrid delivery.
Closing Remarks
The insights and suggestions gathered in this co-creation workshop will shape the design of DDS-MAP’s cybersecurity training materials. By aligning training content with healthcare professionals’ real-world challenges, DDS-MAP remains committed to creating meaningful, clinically relevant educational tools that build confidence and awareness in digital practices in healthcare.
