Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/821337
54 CIO / HEALTH IT Philadelphia Physician Accused of Hacking Female Classmates' Devices By Jessica Kim Cohen A former Philadelphia physician was charged with identity theft and invasion of privacy for allegedly hacking into the cell phones, email and social media accounts of former Delran (N.J.) High School classmates, Philly.com reports. Upon gaining access to former female classmates' accounts, Dr. Peter Gross- man allegedly made digital copies of more than 2,000 photos, the Burling- ton County Prosecutor's Office said March 27. In some cases, he guessed their passwords using information they had posted on social media. The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office did not explain how it identi- fied Dr. Grossman as a suspect, however, investigators found photos of 25 different women in his home. Investigators are still working to iden- tify 13 of the women. Dr. Grossman, who graduated from Delran High School in 2005, served as a physician at Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University Hos- pital, according to Philly.com. Hospital officials on March 27 confirmed with Philly.com that Dr. Grossman was a former employee, but did not offer additional details. Authorities said his case will be presented to a grand jury, according to Philly.com. n 4 Trends Driving Telehealth By Jessica Kim Cohen T he Advisory Board, a Washington, D.C.-based healthcare best practices firm, highlighted four main trends in telehealth in a new report. To compile the report, The Advisory Board analyzed 669 telehealth-re- lated questions it received from members over the past two years. Here are the four trends. 1. Telehealth is in an early stage. Although The Advisory Board saw an 18 percent increase in telehealth questions between 2015 and 2016, the majority — across both years — were general interest questions. 2. Telehealth is implemented systemwide. The majority of questions (77 percent) in 2016 came from strategic healthcare planners, rather than clinical leaders. This trend may speak to how telehealth is a sys- temwide project, not specific to individual service lines. 3. Telehealth is focused on behavioral healthcare. When consider- ing questions about specialty applications in 2016, 22 percent were focused on telepsychiatry or behavioral health. Other popular medical areas included telestroke (14 percent) and e-ICU (12 percent). 4. Telehealth is a patient-focused intervention. The Advisory Board's questions focused on physician-to-patient programs, rather than re- mote physician-to-physician consultations. These questions about di- rect-to-patient programs also tended to revolve around virtual visits — not remote monitoring. n Report: Compromised Health Data Records Drop 75% in 1 Year By Anuja Vaidya T he healthcare industry accounted for 28 percent of data breaches in 2016, howev- er, the number of comprised health data records dropped from 2015 to 2016, according to Gemalto's Breach Level Index. Gemalto, a Netherlands-based digital security firm, found that in 2016, 1,792 data breaches led to almost 1.4 billion data records being compro- mised worldwide. is represents an increase of 86 percent compared to 2015. e firm's Breach Level Index is a global database that tracks data breaches and measures their severity. Here are eight findings from the index. 1. e leading type of data breach across all indus- tries in 2016 was identity the, which accounted for 59 percent of all data breaches. 2. e second most prevalent type of breach in 2016 was account access-based breaches. 3. Malicious outsiders were the primary source of data breaches, accounting for 68 percent of breaches in 2016. In 2015, malicious outsid- ers were responsible for only 13 percent of data breaches. 4. Hacktivist data breaches also increased by 31 percent in 2016. 5. e technology sector saw the largest increase in data breaches in 2016, with breach incidents rising 55 percent. 6. While the healthcare industry accounted for 28 percent of all data breaches in 2016, the number of compromised data records in healthcare de- creased by 75 percent since 2015. 7. e education industry saw a 5 percent decrease in data breaches between 2015 and 2016. 8. Of the almost 1.4 billion records compromised, lost or stolen in 2016, only 6 percent were encrypt- ed fully or partially. n