The record for the number of data breaches reported by healthcare businesses has been smashed in 2016, but the news coming out of a recent report is not all negative.
An annual study by security firm Bitglass which aggregates data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that a total of 328 healthcare organizations reported data breaches in 2016, a 22 percent increase from the 268 reported breaches in 2015.
While the number of incidents have jumped considerably, there was a drop in leaked records, which puts fewer patients at risk. Although 16.6 million records were exposed in 2016, it’s a significant drop from the 35 million leaked records in 2015.
Healthcare businesses are required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to disclose incidents that cause data exposure.