In a medical environment there are two kind of devices:
- Critical devices (that in most cases don't even run Windows): already safe, because using higher security standards.
- Administration devices (patient reports, etc.): don't have local database. And if you don't have connection, your computer is useless. That's the reason of "computers are not working" on hospitals when network is down. So a network failure would be a denial of service both when running local applications accessing a remote database, and for the case of pure remote applications. With the difference that with pure remote applications the attack surface would be near-zero at client side.
That is an oversimplification and the precise point of our disagreement. I don't believe "administrative" devices are non-critical to providing care. The last time I saw an NHS doctor examine an xray - it was an XP box. Is organising ER triage non-critical too?
Distribution, redundancy and routing around faults should be our vision for these systems and IMHO edge devices get closer to that. There are many ways a hospital can still shunt data around and use it locally in an emergency without giving up due to failure of remote systems.
- Critical devices (that in most cases don't even run Windows): already safe, because using higher security standards.
- Administration devices (patient reports, etc.): don't have local database. And if you don't have connection, your computer is useless. That's the reason of "computers are not working" on hospitals when network is down. So a network failure would be a denial of service both when running local applications accessing a remote database, and for the case of pure remote applications. With the difference that with pure remote applications the attack surface would be near-zero at client side.