Nearly eight in 10 consumers are concerned about health data security in the digital age, according to a study conducted by PwC Health Research and released at the Forbes Healthcare Summit in early December.
- Sharing health data via smart phones is a concern of nearly 70 percent of the 1,000 consumers surveyed.
- Seventy-eight percent are worried about medical data security in general.
- Fifty-six percent said privacy and security of medical information would influence decisions to tell doctors "everything" about their conditions.
- Fifty-one percent said it would affect their decisions to participate in clinical trials.
- Nearly 25 percent of all companies detected 50 or more security incidents in the past year.
"The thing that makes health information unique is it is a treasure trove of identity-theft information," said Bryan Kissinger, an executive director at Kaiser Permanente who oversees its Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act program. Data can be used for financial gain and to impersonate someone to impersonate someone to access medical services.
More than five million patients had their personal data compromised in health system privacy breaches last summer. Because health records contain personal, financial and medical data, this information is an especially attractive target for thieves, selling for up to $1,300 per record on the black market. Several national retailers paid nearly $200 million each in damages for breaches in recent years.
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