By By Dan Hounsell

Even as the nation’s healthcare organizations beef up security for their IT systems, cyber attacks continue at a rapid pace, putting patient information and organizations’ bottom lines at risk.

In one recent case, Total Health Care began notifying 221,454 health plan members and physicians of a hacking incident on its employee email accounts, according to Becker’s Hospital Review. A data breach notice said the email accounts had sensitive information about the company's members and physician partners. A forensic investigation found that employee email accounts were accessed by an unauthorized third party.

Sensitive information that was in the email accounts includes Social Security numbers, birthdates, and addresses. In response to the breach, Total Health Care has hired security experts to increase its security and has provided additional cybersecurity training to its employees.