Security breaches, data loss hit hospitals hard

Roughly 61% of healthcare organizations nationwide reported some form of security breach, data loss, or unplanned downtime this past year, Healthcare IT News reported earlier this week. According to a new health IT report by MeriTalk, these security events cost U.S. hospitals an estimated $1.6 billion each year. Each security breach costs $810,000 on average, and incidents occur at nearly one in five healthcare organizations nationwide, MeriTalk found.

Malware and viruses accounted for 58% of the breaches; equipment loss or theft, accounted for 38%. In addition, hardware and software failures resulted in significant data loss and unplanned outages. Data loss affected nearly one in three healthcare organizations this past year and cost more than $807,000 per incident on average. Hardware failure (51%); loss of power (49%) and loss of backup power (27%) were cited as major causes of data loss.

Source: Healthcare IT News