Becker's Hospital Review

37 Health IT 6 Data Breach Predictions By Ellie Rizzo Global information company Experian released its second annual data breach industry forecast, and the outlook isn't good for healthcare. Here are the six predictions Experian has made for the 2015 data breach landscape. 1. Credit cards and "chip and PIN." The window is closing for criminals to profit from credit card payments by exploiting weaknesses in information storage systems. The upcoming October 2015 adoption of "chip and PIN" technology will likely lead to more hacks in the com- ing year, but far fewer afterward, at least in the short term. 2. Cloud data is a hot commodity. In 2015, expect more attempts on cloud data. Hackers will target more credentialing data to gain access to cloud accounts, which can be valuable whether they belong to individuals or organizations. 3. Healthcare breaches will increase. Because of mass digitiza- tion and the value of the data, healthcare is expected to be a continuing target for hackers, with more attacks likely in 2015. The adoption of wearables and apps that store consumer data will make data security much harder to ensure. 4. Leaders will be accountable for data security. No longer will the topic be relegated to the IT department. Top executives must understand the importance of data security and create defined plans for dealing with potential risks. If they choose not to directly engage in data security efforts, they could see the consequences manifest in consumer behavior or even job loss. 5. Human error will be the biggest pain point for breach security. Employees and negligence will be the biggest threats to organizations' data security. However, it is likely business leaders will continue to address security threats via technological solutions rather than engaging directly with their staff through data security training. 6. Third party breaches will be more frequent. Third party data collection has become increasingly common. As such, there are more points of access for cybercriminals to get to organizational data. This could be the next big way for data security to fail. n 257,000 Clinicians Face Meaningful Use Penalties in 2015 By Akanksha Jayanthi E ffective last month, approximately 257,000 eligible professionals are facing Medicare payment adjustments for failing to meet re- quirements of the meaningful use EHR incentive program. Eligible professionals dealt the penalties will receive 1 percent less in Medicare payments than they would normally receive, and approxi- mately 28,000 eligible professionals will receive 2 percent less for fail- ing to comply with both meaningful use and the Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program. Eligible hospitals who failed to meet meaningful use requirements started seeing reimbursement penalties in October 2014. More than 200 hospitals are subject to payment adjustments, according to a Medscape report. CMS is preparing to notify eligible professionals facing such penalties. The mailed notifications will also include instructions for providers wishing to challenge CMS' decision, according to Elizabeth Holland, director of the division of health IT in the quality measurement and health assessment group in the Center for Clinical Standards and Qual- ity at CMS. The American Medical Association released a statement saying it is "ap- palled" that more than 50 percent of eligible professional are facing these penalties, saying it is "a number that is even worse than we anticipated." Reads the AMA letter, "The meaningful use program was intended to increase physician use of technology to help improve care and ef- ficiency. Unfortunately, the strict one-size-fits-all requirements is fail- ing physicians and their patients…. The penalties physicians are facing under the meaningful use program are part of a regulatory tsunami facing physicians." Eligible hospitals had until Dec. 31, 2014 to submit meaningful use attesta- tions for 2014. Eligible professionals will have until Feb. 28, 2015 to submit attestations for 2014. n tions, followed by 27 percent for diagnosis tools and 19 percent to access EHRs, according to a MedData group study. 15. More than one-third of physicians reported recommending an mHealth app to patients with- in the last year, and 47 percent have used their own devices to show patients images, according to a Manhattan Research survey. 16. Almost two-thirds of nurses (65 percent), said they use mobile devices, social media and online references for professional purposes, according to a Wolters Kluwer Health survey analysis. 17. Nearly 75 percent of adults do not use any mHealth apps and fitness tracking devices, ac- cording to a TechnologyAdvice survey of more than 900 adults. 18. Out of 600 of the most commonly used mHealth apps, less than one-third (30.5 percent) have a pri- vacy policy, according to a study in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. 19. Only 100 of the approximately 100,000 mHealth apps available — or 0.1 percent — are FDA-approved, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. 20. Digital health funding had a record year in 2014, totaling $4.1 billion, according to Rock Health. Last year's funding totals surpassed digital health fund- ing of the previous three years combined. 21. The largest data breach in 2014 compromised Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems security and has affected roughly 4.5 million people. 22. One half of healthcare organizations will ex- perience up to five cyber attacks in one year by 2015, predicts IDC Health Insights. 23. By 2020, 80 percent of healthcare data is ex- pected to pass through the cloud, as providers in- creasingly use the cloud for data collection, aggre- gation, analytics and decision-making, according to IDC Health Insights. 24. IDC Health Insights also predicts 65 percent of healthcare interactions will be mobile by 2018. 25. Forty-two percent of data will remain unpro- tected by 2020, ICD Health Insights projects. n

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