A new Brookings Institution study found that 23 percent of all data breaches occur in healthcare with almost 1,500 breaches in the past six years, according to an article on the SIA Update website.
The study said that healthcare data is more valuable than many other forms of personal identification because information such as birth dates, Social Security and insurance ID numbers don’t change and criminals can charge premium prices on the black market.
Digitized personal health data increasingly is shared with insurers and other providers, contributing to the likelihood of breaches.
According to the study's authors, healthcare organizations still have not invested sufficiently in cybersecurity.