Dive Brief:
- A new report from the Ponemon Institute argues that a lack of proven security measures in the health insurance marketplaces is an important threat to patient information, in addition to criminal attacks, employee negligence, unsecured mobile devices and problems with business associates.
- While the number and size of data breaches have declined somewhat, criminal attacks on healthcare systems have shot up 100% since Ponemon's most recent study.
- The Ponemon study, which involved interviews with more than 500 largely hospital-based healthcare executives, found that 69% of respondents believe the ACA has increased risk to patient data, notably in exchange of data between healthcare providers and government.
Dive Insight:
This study underscores one of the key dilemmas in security -- that the more secure data is the harder it is to use, generally speaking. In the case of the ACA marketplaces, data has to be reasonably accessible for both consumer use and exchange between providers, insurers and the government. Striking the right balance between secure and usable is going to be tricky going forward with ACA marketplaces, which are indeed likely to pose big security risks.