Industry · Healthcare + Life Sciences
Healthcare spends 7% of IT
on the wrong things.
Healthcare averages 7% of IT budget on cybersecurity, yet breaches still cost $7.42M average— the largest spend-to-loss gap of any regulated industry (IBM 2025). Most of the spend goes to per-seat enterprise tools that don’t map to ransomware attack paths, EHR pivot points, or connected medical devices. We rebalance the stack around what actually moves loss.
Mid-market healthcare CISO budgets declined in 2025 (IANS) despite 14 consecutive years as the most-breached sector. The squeeze is the buying signal.
What we run for healthcare partners
Eight components. All HIPAA-mapped, OCR-defensible.
HIPAA Risk Assessment
NIST 800-66 aligned. OCR-defensible. BAA program management. Continuous evidence collection mapped to the HIPAA Security Rule + Breach Notification Rule.
Ransomware-Ready MDR
24/7 SOC monitoring tuned for healthcare attack patterns: ransomware lateral movement, EHR pivot points, Citrix/VDI attacks, BEC against finance. Containment authority pre-negotiated.
Medical Device + IoMT Security
Network segmentation for legacy medical devices. ECRI/MedWatch advisory monitoring. Penetration testing for connected devices that can't be patched.
FDA Premarket Cybersecurity
510(k) and PMA cybersecurity submissions. SBOM generation. Threat modeling per FDA 2025 guidance. Postmarket surveillance program.
21 CFR Part 11 + GxP Compliance
Electronic records, electronic signatures, audit trails for clinical and manufacturing systems. Validation documentation maintained continuously.
HITRUST CSF Certification
i1, r2 readiness and assessment coordination. Crosswalks to HIPAA, SOC 2, NIST CSF, ISO 27001 — same evidence answers all five.
Clinical AI + LLM Governance
AI risk assessment for clinical decision support, ambient documentation, patient-facing chatbots. ISO 42001 + NIST AI RMF + FDA AI/ML guidance crosswalked.
Insurance + Breach Counsel Liaison
Carrier-coordinated underwriting (Coalition, Beazley, Chubb, Resilience). Breach counsel network on retainer. IR retainer accepted by all major healthcare cyber carriers.
Buying triggers
Why healthcare boards evaluate a new partner this year.
Peer ransomware incident. Change Healthcare, UnitedHealth, Ascension — every healthcare ransomware peer-incident drives a 90-day reassessment cycle. We pick up calls in that window.
OCR Notice of Investigation. Post-breach Notice of Privacy Act investigation triggers a forensic + remediation engagement. We scope IR + corrective action plan + ongoing monitoring.
Cyber insurance renewal. Carriers now require 24/7 MDR + immutable backup + MFA on all admin accounts before binding healthcare policies above $10M coverage. We document the controls in the format underwriters score against.
Board AI initiative. Clinical AI deployments need governance + risk classification before scaling. We stand up the AI Management System (ISO 42001 + NIST AI RMF) before the lawsuit risk surfaces.
M&A integration. Health system acquisitions inherit unmonitored EHR connections, dormant accounts, unpatched legacy systems. 30-60-90 day integration with security baked in.
Specifics
Read the detail.
HIPAA Compliance Program
OCR-defensible Security Risk Analysis. NIST 800-66 aligned. BAA program management. Continuous evidence.
Read moreManaged Detection & Response
24/7 SOC tuned for healthcare attack patterns. EHR-aware. Containment authority pre-negotiated.
Read moreHealthcare vCISO
Board-ready reporting. Quarterly risk reviews. Regulator-coordinated remediation programs.
Read moreHealthcare IR Retainer
48-hour engagement start. Carrier-accepted. Counsel-coordinated. Ransomware + BEC + insider IR.
Read morePricing posture for healthcare partners
Stated openly. No surprise math.
Modernization Partnership: $500K-$1M-$3M/yr envelope covering MSP + MSSP + AI + Compliance + Offensive. Healthcare engagements typically land mid-band ($1M-$2.5M) given regulated-industry complexity.
Stand-alone HIPAA program: $75K-$200K fixed-fee depending on covered-entity size + BA count.
HITRUST i1/r2 readiness: $120K-$300K + assessor fees billed at cost.
Six months minimum. Schedule directly or call.
Who you’ll work with
Quinnlan Varcoe
CEO and Founder · OSCP · GIAC × 10 · 17 credentials across the practice
Senior IR and detection-engineering work across regulated-industry environments. The same hands that build the HIPAA program respond at 2am when ransomware hits the EHR.
Every partnership begins with me. Not a sales rep, not an account executive, not a junior. The first call, the diagnostic, the strategy work — that’s mine.
OCR investigation? Renewal coming up?
Schedule a callTrusted by partners across the practice
Reviews
From the senior people
who’ve worked alongside Quinn.
The named companies beside each reviewer are their employers — not Varcoe partnerships. Each quote is a professional reference from someone who’s shipped work alongside Quinn directly.
“The partnership model isn't marketing language with Quinn — it's how she actually works. Senior judgment, single accountable contact, and the rigor to integrate across IT, security, and AI under one roof.”
Aaron Birnbaum
Managing Partner
“Quinnlan brings more than expertise — she brings strategic alignment. The ability to scale operations without sacrificing depth is exactly what serious organizations need from a modernization partner.”
Caroline Lombard
Threat Specialist
“I've worked with Quinnlan on incidents most teams couldn't navigate — Log4j among them. The technical depth and the calm under fire are real, and they're rare.”
Justin Cox
Senior AWS Security Analyst
“One of the most seamless collaborations I've had in this industry. Composure under pressure, technical precision, and the kind of credibility that compounds — exactly the senior bench a modernization partnership needs.”
Soufiane Jihadi
Senior Incident Response Consultant
Original references collected on the legacy Varcoe site · LinkedIn endorsements available on request