In IBM’s 2022 Cost of a Data Breach report, the company revealed that the global average cost of a data breach was $4.35 million. In the healthcare sector, however, that number skyrocketed to $10.1 million. Why is an attack on a healthcare organization so much more costly? While part of this comes down to the fact that healthcare organizations often have big budgets, and so might be able to pay big ransoms, the biggest part of the answer is consequences. In there, real lives are at stake. Downed
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health insurance
Healthcare Considerations: Addressing Cyber Risk in the Healthcare Industry
In 2020, the Dental Care Alliance (DCA) experienced a significant cyberattack on its systems, which lasted approximately an entire month. This gave the threat actor an extended period to compromise the healthcare organization’s servers and extract the private and confidential information of around one million patients. This is just another example of how vulnerable the healthcare industry is to cyber criminals looking to exploit security weaknesses. Healthcare organizations are prime targets
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Recent Digital Health Strategic Partnerships Roundup: Unite Us, careMESH, CareCloud, Others
St. Joseph’s Health Enhances Provider Communications with careMESH’s Healthcare Directory and User-Friendly Messaging Services New Jersey-based St. Joseph’s Health partners with careMESH to significantly expand the health system’s clinical communications reach to all community physicians, including digital access to electronic medical records. Using careMESH, St. Joseph’s will focus on several key areas, including: Streamlining external communications with community physiciansReducing
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Report: 20% of Americans Skip Healthcare Due to Transportation Barriers
What You Should Know: A new analysis shows more than 21% of U.S. adults without access to a vehicle or public transit went without needed medical care last year. These individuals were significantly more likely to skip care than those who reported neighborhood access to public transit services (9%).This analysis examining the association between transportation and access to healthcare was conducted by Urban Institute researchers with support from the Robert Wood Johnson
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What Is A HIPAA-Compliant Infrastructure?
U.S. healthcare companies must comply with the data security and privacy standards defined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The purpose of the legislation is to safeguard the privacy and security of protected health information (PHI) and electronic protected health information (ePHI). Failure to comply with HIPAA regulations can result in serious financial fines and reputational damage. What Determines HIPAA Compliance? Organizations
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6 Ways Health Payors Can Leverage Intelligent Document Processing for Cost Savings
The prevailing global economic conditions are negatively impacting the healthcare industry. Continuing staff shortages, endemic COVID-19, high inflation rates, and supply chain disruptions continue to drive medical costs higher, worsening what is already a persistent challenge for health insurers. To offset rising healthcare costs, health insurance payors are challenged to find ways to contain their own costs by streamlining their processes and tightening their belts, which invariably
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Report: Prior Authorization for Biomarker Testing Leads to Treatment Delays For Cancer Patients
What You Should Know: Biomarker testing is a necessary tool in the advancing world of precision cancer treatment. According to a new survey released by CancerCare, a leading national cancer support organization, biomarker testing helped doctors tailor therapy for nearly all the respondent patients (93%) whose cancers were tested over the past three years. Two in 10 cancer patients (20%) surveyed were able to avoid unnecessary chemotherapy and/or radiation and 10% became eligible for
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Why Data Resilience in Healthcare Needs a Routine Physical
The greatest innovation in healthcare in the last twenty years is something that connects us all… data. At any given moment, healthcare facilities, hospitals and more rely on data to operate more efficiently, drive forward patient care and further develop medical research. Even in the last two years, data has been paramount to the development of mRNA technology that has helped us combat the COVID-19 crisis and even led to a new treatment for type-two diabetes. The recent medical
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The Future of Digital Transformation in Hospitals
Hospitals are increasingly motivated to drive digital transformation in order to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, meet regulatory requirements and stay competitive. Additionally, digital transformation can support medical research and drive innovation in healthcare, as well as generate new revenue streams. An increasingly important tool as hospitals undergo these transformations is federated learning, a technology that we will expand on later. Federated learning is a machine learning
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How Health Insurance Plans Can Track & Improve Member Engagement
The first step toward better health outcomes happens when people become proactive about protecting their own health and well-being. Proactive action rarely appears out of nowhere, though — most of us need some inspiration to start thinking about living healthier lifestyles. That’s where health insurance plans have a real opportunity to help. Health plans can be that spark for their members: They can encourage healthier living while ensuring that members have access to the
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