One in Four US Consumers Have Had Their Healthcare Data Breached, Accenture Survey Reveals
20 February 2017 - 10:29PM
Business Wire
Half of data-breach victims incurred resulting
out-of-pocket costs of $2,500, on average
One in four U.S. consumers (26 percent) have had their
personal medical information stolen from technology systems,
according to results of a survey from Accenture (NYSE:
ACN) released today at HIMSS2017 in Orlando.
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The findings show that half (50 percent) of those who
experienced a breach were victims of medical identity theft and had
to pay approximately $2,500 in out-of-pocket costs per incident, on
average.
In addition, the survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers found that
the breaches were most likely to occur in hospitals — the location
cited by more than one-third (36 percent) of respondents who
experienced a breach — followed by urgent-care clinics
(22 percent), pharmacies (22 percent), physician’s
offices (21 percent) and health insurers (21 percent).
Half (50 percent) of consumers who experienced a breach found
out about it themselves, through noting an error on their credit
card statement or benefits explanation, whereas only one-third
(33 percent) were alerted to the breach by the organization
where it occurred, and only about one in seven (15 percent) were
alerted by a government agency.
Among those who experienced a breach, half (50 percent)
were victims of medical identity theft. Most often, the stolen
identity was used to purchase items (cited by 37 percent of
data-breached respondents) or used for fraudulent activities, such
as billing for care (37 percent) or filling prescriptions
(26 percent). Nearly one-third of consumers had their social
security number (31 percent), contact information
(31 percent) or medical data (31 percent) compromised.
Unlike credit-card identity theft, where the card provider
generally has a legal responsibility for account holders’ losses
above $50, victims of medical identity theft often have no
automatic right to recover their losses.
“Health systems need to recognize that many patients will suffer
personal financial loss from cyberattacks of their medical
information,” said Reza Chapman, managing director of
cybersecurity in Accenture’s health practice. “Not only do health
organizations need to stay vigilant in safeguarding personal
information, they need to build a foundation of digital trust with
patients to help weather the storm of a breach.”
Despite the myriad of breaches occurring, significantly more
consumers still trust their healthcare provider (88 percent) and
payer (82 percent) to keep their healthcare data secure than
trust health technology companies (57 percent) or the
government (56 percent) to do so. And while more than four in
five consumers (82 percent) said they want to have at least
some involvement in keeping their healthcare data secured, fewer
than two-thirds (64 percent) said that they have such
involvement today.
In response to the breach, nearly all (91 percent) of the
consumers who were data-breach victims took some type of action.
Some changed healthcare providers (cited by 25 percent),
insurance plans (21 percent) or sought legal counsel
(19 percent). Others took personal steps, such as changing
login credentials (29 percent), subscribing to
identity-protection services (24 percent) or adding security
software to their computer (20 percent). Only 12 percent
of data-breach victims reported the breach to the organization
holding their data.
“Now is the time to strengthen cybersecurity capabilities,
improve defences, build resilience and better manage breaches so
that consumers have confidence that their data is in trusted
hands,” Chapman said. “When a breach occurs, healthcare
organizations should be able to ask ‘How is our plan working’
instead of ‘What’s our plan?”
Methodology
The findings in this news release relate only to the U.S.
portion of Accenture’s seven-country survey. The full research,
“Accenture’s 2017 Healthcare Cybersecurity and Digital Trust
Research,” represents a seven-country survey of 7,580 consumers
ages 18+ to assess their attitudes toward healthcare data, digital
trust, roles and responsibilities, data sharing and breaches. The
online survey included consumers across seven countries: Australia
(1,000), Brazil (1,000), England (1,000), Norway (800), Saudi
Arabia (850), Singapore (930) and the United States (2,000). The
survey was conducted by Nielsen on behalf of Accenture between
November 2016 and January 2017. The analysis provided comparisons
by country, sector, age and use.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company,
providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy,
consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched
experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries
and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest
delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business
and technology to help clients improve their performance and create
sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 394,000
people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives
innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us
at www.accenture.com.
Accenture Security helps organizations build resilience from the
inside out, so they can confidently focus on innovation and growth.
Leveraging its global network of cybersecurity labs, deep industry
understanding across client value chains and services that span the
security lifecycle, Accenture protects organization’s valuable
assets, end-to-end. With services that include strategy and risk
management, cyber defense, digital identity, application security
and managed security, Accenture enables businesses around the world
to defend against known sophisticated threats, and the unknown.
Follow us @AccentureSecure on Twitter or visit us
at www.accenture.com/security.
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AccentureJenn Francis, + 1
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