3 steps to minimize 'data breach epidemic'

The frequency of data breaches in healthcare have increased 32 percent in the past year and cost the industry an estimated $6.5 billion annually according to the second annual benchmarking study conducted by the Ponemon Institute. Among the chief culprits responsible for data security breaches were sloppy employee handling of data and the ever-increasing use of mobile devices in the healthcare setting. Forty-one percent of healthcare executive surveyed attributed data breaches related to protected health information (PHI) to employee mistakes, while half of the respondents said their organization does nothing to protect the information contained on mobile devices.