Hospitals that have been the victim of a data breach or ransomware attack could see an increase in the death rate among heart patients in the following months or years because of the adjustments made to cybersecurity efforts, according to a study published in Health Services Research and cited by PBS.
Researchers used the HHS' public database on hospital data breaches as well as Medicare Compare's data on hospital quality measures between 2012 and 2016 for the study. In total, researchers evaluated 3,025 Medicare-certified hospitals, of which 311 had experienced a data breach.
For hospitals that had experienced a data breach, the time it took for a patient to receive an electrocardiogram increased by 2.7 minutes. Even three to four years after the data breach, the time lag could still be as high as 2 minutes.
Researchers associated the time connection with the increase in 30-day mortality rates for heart attacks.
"There's a clear association for hospitals that saw these breaches. They definitely saw increases in 30-day mortality rates," said Eric Johnson, an IT security researcher and dean of Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, according to PBS.
Many of the hospitals that had experienced a data breach reacted by installing enhanced security controls, including stronger passwords and two-factor authentication. However, these security controls could be slowing clinicians down, according to the report.
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