Data from: Health IT, hacking, and cybersecurity: national trends in data breaches of protected health information

Objective: The rapid adoption of health information technology (IT)
coupled with growing reports of ransomware, and hacking has made
cybersecurity a priority in health care. This study leverages federal data
in order to better understand current cybersecurity threats in the context
of health IT. Materials and Methods: Retrospective observational study of
all available reported data breaches in the United States from 2013 to
2017, downloaded from a publicly available federal regulatory database.
Results: There were 1512 data breaches affecting 154 415 257 patient
records from a heterogeneous distribution of covered entities
(P < .001). There were 128 electronic medical record-related
breaches of 4 867 920 patient records, while 363 hacking incidents
affected 130 702 378 records. Discussion and Conclusion: Despite making up
less than 25% of all breaches, hacking was responsible for nearly 85% of
all affected patient records. As medicine becomes increasingly
interconnected and informatics-driven, significant improvements to
cybersecurity must be made so our health IT infrastructure is
simultaneously effective, safe, and secure.