Healthcare cybersecurity · Cyber risk advisory & device security
First Health Advisory
First Health Advisory is a healthcare cybersecurity firm that assesses risk, carries out remediation, secures medical devices, and helps hospitals plan for and recover from disruptions.
Strong fit
- Hospitals that want medical device security handled by clinical engineering and IT together
- Health systems that need a hands-on partner for assessments, remediation, and security services
- Organizations building business continuity and downtime plans
Weak fit
- Buyers who want software to manage vendor risk on their own
- Small practices that need only a yearly HIPAA risk analysis
- Buyers who need published pricing
Bottom line
First Health Advisory is worth using for health systems that want a cybersecurity partner to work beside their own team, especially on medical device security. It suits organizations that need IT, clinical engineering, and care teams to work together. Buyers who want measured, published results should know they are scarce.
Score breakdown
Weights: Outcomes 35% · Product 30% · Implementation 20% · Pricing clarity 15%.
First Health Advisory is a healthcare cybersecurity firm. It assesses risk, plans and makes fixes, runs security services, and helps hospitals prepare for and recover from disruptions.
Carter Groome, who began his career in hospital IT at Adventist HealthCare, helped found it and has led it as chief executive since 2010.
The firm started out connecting electronic health records and clinical systems for health systems. As medical devices joined hospital networks, it moved into finding and reducing their security risks.
Its services now cover strategy and oversight, risk assessments against HICP, NIST, and HIPAA, planning and making fixes, incident response and recovery, and help with connected device and platform projects.
Its team mixes CISOs, clinicians, engineers, and strategists, and it works for federal clients as well as health systems. It has also launched Resilience360, a program for keeping critical operations and patient care running through outages and attacks.
The firm has earned recognition for that work. It is one of the American Hospital Association's preferred cybersecurity and risk providers. Groome joined John Riggi, the AHA's national advisor for cybersecurity and risk, on its podcast to discuss tying security to business priorities.
One health system client credits it with getting medical equipment, IT, and clinical leaders working from the same playbook, with shared oversight and risk measures. Another values its medical device security experience, which many healthcare cyber firms lack.
Case studies from identified clients with measured results are scarce, which holds down its score for results.
Other firms fit different needs. Clearwater suits a health system that wants compliance and risk management software with services. Censinet suits vendor risk work, and Fortified Health Security suits a managed security program.
Meditology Services suits audits, testing, and HITRUST work. Cyber Salus suits a smaller organization that wants a healthcare-focused security monitoring provider.
Competitor landscape
| Vendor | Overall | Ease of implementation |
|---|---|---|
| Clearwater | 7.6 | 7.2 |
| Fortified Health Security | 7.6 | 7.2 |
| Defendify | 7.6 | 7.4 |
| Censinet | 7.5 | 7.1 |
| Pondurance | 7.5 | 7.2 |
| Meditology Services | 7.1 | 7.0 |
| First Health Advisory | 6.9 | 7.0 |
| Cyber Salus | 6.7 | 6.6 |
Pricing
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Model | Custom engagement quoted by First Health Advisory. |
| What usually drives cost | The scope of assessments, the number of hospitals and connected devices, whether ongoing security services are included, and engagement length. |
| What to ask before you buy | Which work is fixed-fee and which is billed by the hour, which staff will work on site, and how progress is measured and reported. |
| Published pricing | First Health Advisory does not publish a price list. |
Prerequisites for purchase
| Need | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| What you need to get First Health Advisory to function | |
| Security leader or CISO | Owns the program. |
| Clinical engineering and IT leaders at the table | Device risk spans both. |
| Current device and asset inventory | Scopes the work. |
| Recent risk assessment results | Sets the starting point. |
| Budget for remediation | Findings need fixing. |
| What will maximize your value | |
| Set shared risk metrics across departments | Keeps teams aligned. |
| Run downtime and recovery drills | Tests readiness. |
| Report progress to leadership each quarter | Keeps funding steady. |
| Deal-breakers | |
| No internal owner for security | |
| No budget for remediation | |
| A need for software only | |
Value creation time frame
| # | Stage | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scoping and assessment | 1-3 months |
| 2 | Fixes under way | 3-6 months |
| 3 | Program running and measured | 12-18 months |
Leadership
Methodology
| Weight | Factor | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| 35% | Customer outcomes | Whether buyers get measurable operational or clinical-workflow results after go-live |
| 30% | Product | Capability depth, reliability, and fit for the job the category buys |
| 20% | Implementation | How hard it is to stand up, integrate, train, and stabilize |
| 15% | Pricing clarity | Whether a buyer can model total cost without a mystery quote |
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Highly recommend | Strong outcomes and product with manageable caveats |
| Recommend | Solid fit for the right buyer; know the tradeoffs |
| Conditional | Only with a specific use case or heavy caveats |
| Not recommended | Avoid for most buyers in this category |
Read our full methodology for how we weight scores and assign recommend labels.