Administrators at large U.S. health systems are significantly more concerned about data breaches and privacy risks tied to AI than their counterparts at smaller organizations, a Jan. 23 survey from Wolters Kluwer Health found.
The findings come from an online survey commissioned by Wolters Kluwer Health that polled 518 hospital and health system administrators and providers in December 2025. The survey focused on “shadow AI,” or the use of unapproved AI tools by staff, and broader attitudes toward AI adoption in healthcare.
Here are four key findings from the survey:
- While patient safety remains the top concern across the industry, worries about data security and privacy rise sharply with organizational size, particularly among senior leaders overseeing large workforces.
- Across all respondents, nearly 30% ranked data breaches as their first or second most significant risk associated with AI tools. Among respondents working at health systems with more than 25,000 employees, that figure rose to 57%.
- Privacy concerns followed a similar pattern. About one-third of all respondents ranked privacy as their top or second concern, while 35% of administrators did the same. Among administrators at hospitals with 12,000 or more employees, nearly half — 46% — ranked privacy among their top two concerns.
- Administrators, overall, expressed greater concern about privacy risks than frontline providers. More than 20% of administrators said privacy was their top concern, compared with 14% of providers. The concern was particularly pronounced among financial leaders, with 37% of CFOs ranking privacy as their number one issue.
The survey included 256 providers and 262 administrators, including executives such as CEOs, CMOs, CIOs and CFOs.
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