Avoiding a security breach and its subsequent effects on business performance is the top privacy and security concern across hospitals and health systems, according to research conducted by Intel in 2015.
The concern is justified, as each breach event knocked business performance by an average of $6.53 million, or $398 per patient record in 2015, according to the Ponemon Cost of a Data Breach report published in the same year.
As the industry navigates the transition from volume- to value-based care, in which more payment models are based on risk, the ability to rapidly assess security breaches has never been more prominent. To understand whether an organization is equipped to handle such circumstances, it must assess its level of maturity, or its preparedness to react and mitigate the effects of a breach.
Even with strong security systems in place, no organization is immune to the threat of a breach. That is why it is vital to understand whether you are vulnerable to an attack relative to peers and the rest of the healthcare industry, as no organization wants to stick out as an easy target.
Maturity models — such as the HIMSS Analytics EMR Adoption Model, which has over 5,300 hospital users around the world — have a successful track record in healthcare. Such models enable healthcare providers to quickly assess their level of maturity, identify any gaps and define opportunities to improve security measures. They also allow providers to track their maturity level against healthcare industry norms.
With security assessments, such as the Healthcare Breach Security Assessment offered by Intel, a hospital can identify how its security safeguards measure up against the healthcare breach security maturity model. These valuable evaluations provide hospitals and health systems with summaries of important findings, including the organization's maturity level, how it compares with the rest of the industry, any gaps in security and a multi-year plan to build out their breach security.
To access a whitepaper on security breach assessments sponsored by Intel, click here.