Information technology breakdowns cost healthcare providers more than $1.6 billion a year, according to a new report by MeriTalk.
The survey of 100 healthcare executives, conducted in conjunction with storage firm EMC, found that 61% of global healthcare organizations experienced a security breach, data loss, or unplanned downtime at least once in the past 12 months.
Other results included the following:
- Nearly one in five (19%) global healthcare organizations experienced a security breach in the past 12 months at a cost of $810,000 per incident. The most common causes of breaches included malware and viruses (58%), outsider attacks (42%), physical security or loss/theft of equipment (38%), and user error (35%).
- Nearly one in three (28%) global healthcare organizations experienced data loss in the past 12 months at a cost of $808,000 per incident. More than a third (39%) experienced five or more incidences of data loss in the past 12 months. Common causes of data loss included hardware failure (51%), loss of power (49%), and loss of backup power (27%).
- Nearly two out of five (40%) global healthcare organizations experienced an unplanned outage in the past 12 months at a cost of $432,000 per incident. On average, providers lost 57 hours to unplanned downtime over the past 12 months. The most common causes of outages included hardware failure (65%), loss of power (49%), software failure (31%), and data corruption (24%).
Interestingly, fewer than one-third of respondents (27%) believe their organization is fully prepared to ensure continuous availability of electronic personal health information during unplanned outages, disaster recovery, or emergency mode operations. More than half (56%) of the respondents would need eight hours or more to restore 100% of data after an emergency.
MeriTalk provides IT expertise for government and healthcare entities, hosting forums on various topics and developing research studies, managing events, building applications, and advocating for IT and workforce issues.
