You won’t find a more impactful initiative for your healthcare IT strategy today than implementing a Certificate Lifecycle Management (CLM) solution. While some organizations have adopted basic tools or competitive offerings, many still rely on fragmented, manual processes for managing digital certificates. In an industry as high-stakes and overburdened as healthcare, that’s a risk we can no longer afford.
Digital certificates play a critical role in securing data, enabling encrypted communication, and authenticating users, devices, and applications. But when managed manually or inconsistently, they introduce serious vulnerabilities: from outages and compliance violations to outright breaches. In a healthcare environment, those consequences don’t just affect infrastructure—they disrupt patient care, delay procedures, and put lives at risk.
Here are five reasons why CLM isn’t just an IT concern; it’s a strategic imperative for healthcare organizations.
1. Certificate Failures Can Disrupt Patient Care
Manual certificate management often leads to missed expirations or configuration errors. In healthcare, this translates to system outages that can take down clinical applications, EHR platforms, medical devices, or patient portals. Even a short disruption can delay procedures, interrupt diagnostics, or lock out care teams—creating cascading risks to safety, trust, and compliance.
A CLM solution automates renewals and alerts, drastically reducing the risk of expiration-related outages. In short, it keeps your infrastructure—and your care delivery—running smoothly.
2. The Cost of Inaction Is Much Greater Than the Cost of Automation
Some healthcare organizations hesitate to invest in certificate management automation due to budget constraints or perceived complexity. But the operational and financial risks of doing nothing are far greater.
The average cost of a certificate-related outage is high—not just in downtime, but in staff time, recovery, reputational damage, and possible regulatory penalties. With automated CLM, organizations can reduce unplanned downtime, eliminate manual errors, and free up IT resources. That’s a strong ROI in a resource-constrained environment.
3. Healthcare IT Is Overburdened, and CLM Lightens the Load
With healthcare IT teams stretched thin by legacy systems, compliance demands, and resource shortages, manual certificate management quickly becomes unsustainable. CLM platforms like DigiCert ONE’s Trust Lifecycle Manager integrate seamlessly with existing systems, offering out-of-the-box compatibility with EHR platforms, DNS infrastructure, identity systems, and more.
By automating the full lifecycle—from issuance and renewal to auditing and revocation—CLM reduces the burden on IT teams while improving reliability and security posture.
4. Regulatory Pressure Is Rising, and CLM Simplifies Compliance
Healthcare organizations are no strangers to regulatory complexity. But proposed updates to HIPAA, evolving HITRUST guidance, and increased scrutiny from regulators around cybersecurity readiness all point to a future where continuous certificate governance will be expected, not optional.
A well-implemented CLM system supports compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, NIST CSF, and PCI DSS by centralizing governance, enabling full visibility, and maintaining a verifiable chain of trust. Without it, even the best-staffed security teams may struggle to stay audit-ready.
5. The Industry is Evolving—Fast
We’re entering a period of rapid change in digital trust. Starting in 2029, major browser vendors will require TLS certificates to be renewed every 47 days—a significant acceleration that will make manual processes nearly impossible to sustain. At the same time, Google Chrome has announced new enforcement policies that reject server certificates containing the ClientAuth EKU, making legacy configurations obsolete and further tightening the requirements for certificate hygiene.
This evolution coincides with the growing urgency around post-quantum cryptography, which will require organizations to inventory and update cryptographic assets over the next few years. A modern CLM solution positions organizations to handle these changes gracefully—offering the agility to rotate certificates quickly, adopt hybrid crypto strategies, and stay ahead of emerging threats.
CLM in Action: From Reactive to Resilient
Beyond operational efficiency, CLM delivers strategic value. A strong CLM policy demonstrates an organization’s commitment to data protection, builds trust with patients and partners, and helps defend against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, including phishing and man-in-the-middle exploits. When something goes wrong—whether due to a certificate authority (CA) error or a compromised key—organizations with automated CLM can respond in minutes rather than days.
CLM also enhances monitoring and incident response by tracking certificate usage patterns and flagging anomalies. This is especially important for supporting forensic investigations and ensuring long-term infrastructure integrity.
A Strategic Move for Healthcare Security
Certificate Lifecycle Management is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a must-have for any healthcare organization committed to operational resilience, regulatory compliance, and high-quality patient care.
As the industry faces a convergence of regulatory, technological, and threat-driven pressures, CLM offers a clear path forward. It’s time to stop treating certificate management as a background IT task and start viewing it as a strategic enabler of secure, uninterrupted care.
The healthcare sector depends on trust. CLM is how we maintain it.
About Mike Nelson
Mike Nelson is the VP of Digital Trust at DigiCert, a global leader in digital trust. In this role, Mike oversees the company’s strategic IoT market development for all products including Device Trust, Software and Content Trust, Enterprise Trust and Trust Lifecycle Manager. Nelson frequently consults with organizations, contributes to media reports and speaks at industry conferences about the risks of connected technology, and what can be done to improve the security of these systems.
Before DigiCert, Nelson spent his career in healthcare IT including time at the US Department of Health and Human Services, GE Healthcare and Leavitt Partners. Mike’s passion for the industry stems from his personal experience as a type 1 diabetic and his use of connected technology in his treatment.
