Surveys & Reports

In December of 2009, two laptops containing sensitive information were stolen from the health insurance provider AvMed’s corporate headquarters, leading to a breach of 1.2 million customer records. Though this breach happened some years ago, AvMed suffered significant financial, reputational, and organizational hardship for years afterwards. What’s more, the subsequent class-action suit has set a new legal precedent for monetary reimbursements for breach victims.

The healthcare industry sees 340% more security incidents and attacks than the average industry, according to new research. The 2015 Industry Drill-Down Report - Healthcare reveals that the healthcare industry continues to be highly-targeted, due to the high value of healthcare data as well as the new wave of connected devices adding additional attack vectors to this highly complicated industry.

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) just released a draft of its first cybersecurity practice guide, “Securing Electronic Health Records on Mobile Devices.” The document serves as a “how to guide” with a solution on how to secure PHI with ideas consistent with cybersecurity standards and best practices.

Healthcare IT is undergoing a complex and challenging transformation. Today healthcare IT departments must not only keep up with ever-changing regional and global regulations surrounding protected health information (PHI), they also have to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and situations that could lead to data breaches—even if they’re accidental.

Today’s healthcare organizations are under pressure to increase the affordability, quality and efficiency of patient care, all while streamlining costs and staying compliant with ever-changing regulatory legislation. Those demands alone are enough to strain resources to the breaking point. However, recent studies show that protecting patient information is one of the biggest challenges that modern health practices face.