Technology and Cybersecurity for Healthcare in Kenya
Hospital systems, DHA certification penetration testing and patient data protection for Kenyan health facilities and health software vendors.
Hospital and clinic systems, DHA certification security testing, and patient data protection for facilities and health software vendors.
Health data is the most sensitive data most organisations will ever hold. A patient's diagnosis, prescriptions and test results cannot be changed like a password once they leak, and the Kenya Data Protection Act treats health data as sensitive personal data for exactly that reason. Health systems are also targets: they hold valuable data, they cannot afford downtime, and they are often run by teams whose priority, rightly, is care rather than security.
Kenya's digital health framework has raised the bar for everyone in the sector. Under the Digital Health Act, 2023, the Digital Health Agency certifies the health information systems used to deliver care, and facilities increasingly need their systems to be certified to keep working with the Social Health Authority. For a software vendor, that makes security evidence a condition of selling. For a facility, it makes the choice of system a compliance decision as well as a clinical one.
Neurobyte works with health facilities and health software vendors on the systems and on their security. We build hospital and clinic systems, and we run the independent penetration test and vulnerability assessment that DHA certification asks for. We also help facilities protect patient data under the Data Protection Act, because certification is a point in time and patient data has to stay safe every day.
The rules you work under
Digital Health Act, 2023 and DHA certification
The Digital Health Agency certifies digital health solutions used in delivering care. Its certification portal marks a penetration testing report and a vulnerability assessment report as Required, and both must reflect testing from within the last 12 months, so the evidence has to be renewed every year.
Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019
Health data is sensitive personal data under the Act, which raises the bar for lawful processing, security and impact assessment. A breach involving patient records must be reported to the Data Protection Commissioner within 72 hours of becoming aware of it.
Social Health Authority contracting
Facilities that serve SHA members depend on systems that meet the national digital health requirements. A facility on a system that falls out of compliance can find its contracting affected, which makes the vendor's security evidence the facility's problem too.
Where the risk sits
- Patient data across many hands: Reception, clinicians, pharmacy, labs and billing all touch the same record. Role-based access that actually holds, and an audit trail of who viewed what, matter more here than almost anywhere else.
- Downtime is not an option: A ransomware attack on a hospital is a clinical incident, not just an IT one. Backups that have been tested, and a plan for running when systems are down, are part of patient safety.
- Multi-facility systems: Systems shared by several facilities must keep each facility's patients separate. Whether one facility can see another's records is one of the first things we test, and one of the most serious findings when it fails.
- Annual certification evidence: Because DHA asks for recent testing, the security reports are not a one-off. Vendors need a testing cycle that keeps the evidence current, not a scramble each time it expires.
What we do for Healthcare
We have delivered healthcare systems covering patient records, billing and health information exchange, and we test health systems against the same requirements we work to ourselves.
- DHA certification security testing: The penetration test and vulnerability assessment reports DHA marks Required, with remediation evidence and an annual retest cycle so your reports stay current. DHA Certification Testing
- Penetration testing for health systems: Testing focused on the findings that reach patient data: unauthenticated access, broken authorisation and cross-facility data leakage. VAPT & Penetration Testing
- Patient data protection: Data mapping, impact assessments for health data processing, privacy notices and breach response planning under the Kenya Data Protection Act. Data Protection & Privacy Compliance
- Hospital and clinic systems: Patient records, pharmacy, lab, billing and claims, built for how Kenyan facilities work and secured from the first release. Custom Software Development
- Managed detection and response: 24/7 monitoring and endpoint protection for the workstations and servers a facility cannot afford to lose to ransomware. Managed Cybersecurity
Frequently asked questions
Is penetration testing required for DHA certification?
The DHA certification portal lists a Penetration Testing Report and a Vulnerability Assessment Report under Compliance and marks both Required, with the testing dated within the last 12 months. An application cannot be completed without both. Our DHA certification guide explains what each report must cover.
We are a facility, not a software vendor. What do we need?
Your system vendor carries the certification, but you carry the patient data. Ask your vendor for current certification and security evidence, make sure staff accounts and access are managed properly, and have a plan for a data breach or a ransomware attack. We help facilities with all three.
Is health data treated differently under the Data Protection Act?
Yes. Health data is sensitive personal data under the Kenya Data Protection Act, 2019, which brings stricter conditions for processing and makes a data protection impact assessment more likely to be required. The security safeguards you are expected to apply are correspondingly higher.
Can you test a system that is already live with patients on it?
Yes, under a rules-of-engagement document agreed in advance. We avoid destructive tests on production, coordinate timing with your team, and where possible test against a staging copy that mirrors production.
How long does DHA security testing take?
It depends on the size of the system, but a typical health information system is tested over one to three weeks, followed by remediation and a retest. Start early: the reports must be in hand before you submit.