Teaching Hospitals at Greater Data Breach Risk

A research on data breaches at hospitals has revealed that those with major teaching facilities and more beds were at greater breach risk, says a Johns Hopkins University report. Conducted by Ge Bai of John Hopkins Carey Business School, the study examined federal Department of Health and Human Services’ data breach statistics of health facilities between 2009 and 2016.

"It is very challenging for hospitals to eliminate data breaches, since data access and sharing are crucial to improve the quality of care and advance research and education," explains Bai. "To understand the risk of data breaches is the first step to manage it," she believes.

The study found 15% of the affected hospitals were breached twice and in all the breaches health information of millions were compromised. Data of over 60,000 were exposed in six hospitals while Illinois’ Advocate Health and Hospitals Corporation reported 4,031,767 impacted by two breaches.

Read details here.