Protecting healthcare data has become a hot topic in the news over the past year. Three recent studies from Ponemon on the costs associated with a data breach shows that breaches of health care records cost the breached company more than twice the global average:
- 2015 results: $363 per stolen record, against a global average of $217
- 2016 results: $355 per stolen record, against a global average of $158
- 2017 results: $380 per stolen record, against a global average of $141
Writing for Health IT Security, Elizabeth Snell notes four actions healthcare companies can take, under both HIPAA guidelines, and general prevention, to reduce the risk of being subject to a breach:
- Maintaining an incident response plan, to ensure records are not damaged, lost, or otherwise exposed;
- Using data encryption, to minimize the chances that lost records or data can be read or exposed;
- Engaging in employee training, to ensure employees are familiar with all rules and regulations surrounding the handling of healthcare records;
- Implementing data loss prevention techniques, to restrict access to files to only those that require access.
Source:
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/how-much-do-healthcare-data-breaches-cost-organizations
