Healthcare governance is the set of rules, controls, and decision processes that determine how clinical tools are approved, deployed, monitored, and retired. It covers who may use a system, what it may be used for, what evidence is required before release, and how changes are reviewed.
In cyber security, governance matters because medical software often handles sensitive data and can influence patient care. Weak governance can allow unvetted applications, unsafe configurations, poor access control, or unsupported integrations to enter the clinical environment. That creates risk for data exposure, service disruption, and harmful decisions. Strong governance helps defenders by enforcing approval workflows, vendor review, logging, patching, model validation, and human oversight. It also creates an audit trail, making it easier to investigate incidents, prove what a tool did, and assign responsibility when technology affects care.