Lessons From Major Health Care Data Breaches

Recent leaps in technology toward health care digitization have resulted in unprecedented amounts of personal health data being collected, shared, and analyzed on an everyday basis. Due to this proliferation in data, there are now more reasons to be concerned about patient privacy than ever. Despite public concerns and government’s efforts, the frequency and magnitude of privacy breaches have been on an upward trend (see figure below) and data breaches are more likely to happen in the health care industry than any other sector. In this new report, Niam Yaraghi examines the recent privacy breaches in the health care system. He uncovers underlying factors leading to these incidents, documents lessons learned, and examines how to prevent similar breaches in the future.