Healthcare organizations can greatly benefit from improved third-party risk management (TPRM) processes. But what is the fastest and most impactful way you can achieve that goal? For many experts, the answer is clear: implement a TPRM framework.
This article explores what that means and how you can select the best framework for your organization. From reduced risk exposure to improved compliance, we will help you develop a model that meets your specific needs and enables you to take back control of vendor risk.
Third-Party Risk Management Frameworks: An Overview
What is a TPRM Framework?
A third-party risk management (TPRM) framework is a systematic approach that helps organizations evaluate, manage, and mitigate dangers related to their vendor network. This holistic structure helps risk management teams make their program more consistent and efficient – enabling them to scale operations and increase protections against third-party threats.
Three Ways TPRM Frameworks Benefit Healthcare Organizations
The overarching benefit of a TPRM framework is simple: strong security and enhanced compliance. However, these manifest across a wide range of factors – which we can segment into three clear improvements:
- Greater Consistency
A framework provides clear, repeatable processes that help standardize vendor management. Many TPRM programs are assembled piecemeal, without a view of how each process connects to the others – or how it could be optimized to increase clarity, boost resilience, or save time.
For example, vendor risk management requires a lot of assessments – especially given that the average healthcare organization works with over 1,300 vendors. Scaling these programs often involves workarounds, such as reusing questionnaires. But, these may not be 100% relevant to the vendor, which can cause tension and lead to sub-optimal risk data.
The right TPRM framework helps put safeguards in place to ensure the assessment process is reliable, scalable, and tackles potential friction points.
- Increased Visibility
A framework helps to eliminate blind spots and ensure you have a full view of risk across the entire vendor network – and accounting for all forms of risk. The systematic overview guides assessments, analyses, and remediation efforts; each element of the program can be allotted sufficient time and resources to optimize results.
Such increased visibility makes it easier to identify and prioritize risks – which means they are dealt with faster. It also helps risk leaders communicate risk more effectively with the board and c-suite, ultimately supporting efforts to unlock more budget.
- Optimized Processes
The combination of greater consistency and increased visibility enables risk teams to evaluate and improve all processes related to vendor threats. From rethinking how they communicate with vendors to identifying opportunities to automate assessment tasks, this leads to a number of clear benefits:
- Lower costs through greater efficiency and reduced waste
- Better vendor relationships are achieved through more effective communication
- Greater resilience and less risk of vendor data breaches
But how do you actually generate these benefits?
The Four Most Common TPRM Frameworks
1. Shared Assessments Standardized Information Gathering (SIG) Questionnaire
The SIG Questionnaire, developed by Shared Assessments, is purpose-built for third-party risk management. It enables organizations to evaluate vendors using a standardized set of questions aligned with industry standards such as HIPAA, NIST, ISO, and GDPR. It is especially valuable for healthcare organizations managing a diverse vendor ecosystem.
Benefits:
- Efficiency: Reduces the need for custom vendor questionnaires, saving time
- Consistency: Ensures uniform assessment criteria across all vendors
- Comprehensive Coverage: Assesses security, privacy, operational, and compliance risks in one tool
2. NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0
NIST CSF 2.0 provides voluntary guidance to manage cybersecurity risks, including those introduced by third parties. The framework emphasizes supply chain and third-party risk management within its “Identify” and “Govern” functions. It encourages organizations to categorize vendors, define acceptable risk thresholds, and integrate vendor risk into broader enterprise risk management strategies.
Benefits:
- Flexibility: Adaptable to organizations of any size and complexity
- Risk-Based: Supports risk-tiering and prioritization of vendors
- Holistic: Promotes integration of vendor risk into enterprise-wide cybersecurity planning
3. ISO 14971
While primarily focused on medical devices, ISO 14971 emphasizes lifecycle risk management, including risks from suppliers and service providers. For healthcare organizations relying on third-party device manufacturers or software vendors, it ensures a structured approach to identifying and managing vendor-related risks.
Benefits:
- Supplier Oversight: Requires evaluation of third-party contributions to device safety
- Standardized Risk Process: Applies consistent risk analysis to internal and external sources
- Lifecycle Focus: Maintains risk awareness throughout vendor relationships
4. Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) Common Security Framework (CSF)
The HITRUST CSF integrates multiple regulatory and industry standards into a unified, certifiable framework. It includes specific requirements for third-party risk management, such as vendor risk assessments, contractual obligations, and ongoing monitoring.
Benefits:
- Tailored Assessments: Provides separate assessment options for different-sized vendors
- Certifiable Assurance: Vendors can obtain HITRUST certification, making it easier to validate their security posture
- Proven Results: Fewer than 1% of HITRUST-certified organizations experienced a security breach between 2022-2023
Four Core Elements of a TPRM Framework
Each of the TPRM frameworks we’ve discussed diverge in many important ways, but we can extrapolate from them five core elements every framework should share:
1. Risk Identification
Every TPRM framework must organize and systematize vendor-related risk. This “identification” process creates a foundation for your TPRM program, making it easier to develop a shared language around risks and reliably categorize and rank risks.
The NIST CSF has a pillar dedicated to identification, during which leaders are directed to assess the business context, the resources that support critical functions, and the cybersecurity risks related to their vendor network. This covers a wide range of areas, including:
- Cybersecurity and data privacy risks
- Reputational risks
- Financial risks
- Legal and Regulatory risks
- Operational Risk
- Geopolitical risk
- Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risk
The HITRUST CSF takes a different approach, weaving risk identification into the entire compliance and control assessment process. But it still emphasizes the importance of identifying and systematizing risk – making this a non-negotiable part of any solid TPRM framework.
2. Risk Assessment and Prioritization
Each framework emphasizes the importance of regular and efficient vendor assessments. This should be an ongoing process, with an emphasis on:
- Vendor Communication: Avoid fragmentation and ensure communication with vendors is conducted through a centralized platform. This helps to accelerate the assessment process and improve documentation for future reference.
- Shared Language: Develop a shared language to understand the assessment process. For example, Assessment Statuses are valuable for monitoring assessment progress and quickly understanding what is required, but your entire team must understand what each Status means.
- Risk Scoring: Consider using an objective risk scoring system to compare vendors’ security posture and determine which requires the most immediate remediation effort. This could be individual vendor risk scores or categories such as technology type. For example, many organizations may wish to prioritize AI-related risk present – and your TPRM processes make this possible.
All help manage and scale the high volume of vendor assessments – and ensure you can remediate risk.
3. Risk Remediation
Mitigating and eliminating vendor risk is ultimately what TPRM programs are designed for – and the right framework must make this easier. With risk scoring to support effective prioritization, your program should be able to address concerns with clear processes to:
- Mitigate Risks: Collaborate with vendors to improve their security processes
- Manage Liability: Ensure vendor contracts include language around risk liability and security standards
- Eliminate Threats: Offboard vendors safely when necessary to ensure they are completely removed from your IT system
These are all ongoing processes that should run concurrently with your vendor risk assessments.
4. Incident Response
While TPRM programs aim to avoid data breaches, there must still be robust incident response plans in place. Your framework should ensure time and resources are devoted to developing factors such as:
- Communication Channels: Ensuring your teams can communicate both internally and with vendors during an attack.
- Response Protocols: Clear procedures to ensure impacted third parties are cut off from your system and access to patient data and critical systems is limited
- Breach Notification: Fulfilling HIPAA requirements in the event of a breach within the specified time period to avoid non-compliance
Select and Implement a TPRM Framework with Intraprise Health
Third-party risk management frameworks can be overwhelming – and you might struggle to select the best option for your organization.
Intraprise Health by Health Catalyst helps healthcare companies of all sizes and needs navigate that challenge:
- Our innovative NIST platform helps you navigate NIST CSF assessments and align your TPRM program with the framework
- Our HITRUST expertise can help you understand and align your systems with the framework to gain and retain certification
- Our third-party risk management software can streamline, automate, and improve your vendor assessments
Want to explore how we could help you improve TPRM – to protect your patients, reputation, and bottom line?
