An increase in the amount of patient data going online and lagging cybersecurity efforts are contributing factors in a new estimate that 1 in 3 health records will be breached in 2016, according to an IDC Health Insights report.
Here are five things to know about the report, according to Computer World:
1. Healthcare data can be five, 10 or even 50 times more valuable than other forms of protected information.
2. Beyond exploiting the data they contain, cybercriminals and hackers can use electronic patient records to fill and resell prescription medications and file fraudulent claims. Fraudulent billing currently represents between 3 percent and 10 percent of annual U.S. health expenditures.
3. Breaches such as Anthem's and Premera's are examples of how major healthcare organizations have demonstrated they are slow to adopt aggressive measures against cybercrime and hacking.
4. "Part of this increase [in cyber attacks] is because there's more electronic data than ever before," Lynne Dunbrack, research vice president for IDC Health Insights said, according to CW. "Some of the things leading to attacks are good things. For example, digitized formats allow [sharing] patient data among providers."
5. Additional predictions made in the report include a reduction in patient deaths and treatment costs by 10 percent by 2018, in part due to big data analyzers such as IBM Watson, and an overall increase in consumer use of virtual care.