Cyberattacks will cost U.S. health systems $305 billion in cumulative lifetime revenue over the next five years, based on an Accenture report.
Here are five key notes:
1. Personal information of one in 13 patients, or about 25 million patients, will be stolen from health system technology systems over the next five years.
2. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights reported that 1.6 million people had medical information stolen last year.
3. Of those patients that will be affected by stolen medical information, 25 percent of them will most likely experience medical identity theft and 16 percent of them will pay out-of-pocket costs totaling $56 billion over five years.
4. Accenture reports if healthcare providers focus on cyber attacks, they will improve their defense line against them by an average of 53 percent.
5. Accenture suggests health systems proactively plan for cyberattacks, as opposed to responding once a breach occurs.
"What most health systems don't realize is that many patients will suffer personal financial loss as a result of cyberattacks on medical information," said Kaveh Safavi, MD, JD, managing director of global healthcare business, Accenture.
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