Digital Data on Patients Raises Risk of Breaches

As part of the 2009 stimulus bill, the federal government provides incentive payments to doctors and hospitals to adopt electronic health records. Some 57 percent of office-based physicians now use electronic health records, a 12 percent jump from last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. An unintended consequence is that as patient records have been digitized, health data breaches have surged.

The number of reported breaches is up 32 percent this year from last year, according to the Ponemon Institute, a security research group. Those breaches cost the industry an estimated $6.5 billion last year. In almost half the cases, a lost or stolen phone or personal computer was responsible. Health organizations are required by federal law to report data breaches that affect more than 500 people to the Department of Health and Human Services. The department’s Office of Civil Rights publishes the equivalent of a data breach “Wall of Shame” on its Web site — which today includes 380 breaches affecting more than 18 million people.