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

Abstract 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.