2015 Healthcare Security Predictions Show Cybersecurity Need

Healthcare security concerns are not likely decrease in the next few years, according to a recent report. In fact, by 2015, 50 percent of healthcare organizations will have experienced one to five cyber attacks in the previous 12 months. Moreover, one out of three of those attacks will be deemed successful, according to the latest health insights prediction report from IDC.

“IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Healthcare 2015 Predictions” delved into long-term healthcare security trends that will likely be necessary for the healthcare industry, as well as new issues that could appear down the road. For example, the report showed that 80 percent of healthcare data will pass through the cloud at some point in its lifetime by the year 2020. This will likely happen because providers continue to implement cloud-based technologies and infrastructure for data collection, aggregation, analytics, and decision-making.

“These decision imperatives provide a road map for healthcare organizations to think about IT investments that will need to be made and the impact they will have on an organization, all of which can be used to support the planning and budgeting process,” IDC Health Insights General Manager and Group Vice President Scott Lundstrom said in a statement.

Lundstrom added that the common themes found in the 2015 prediction report focus on consumer experience and engagement, the use of mobile and internet enabled devices, and 3rd Platform technologies.

This report further underlines the necessity for healthcare organizations to review all healthcare security aspects, including HIPAA technical safeguards. This is especially necessary with a potential for increase in mobile health and even BYOD technologies. Providers will need to ensure that they can securely access patient data through mobile devices.

For example, 65 percent of consumer transactions with healthcare organizations will be mobile by 2018, IDC stated, adding that this will require healthcare facilities to develop better omni-channel strategies. That way, organizations can provide a consistent experience across the web, mobile, and telephonic channels.

The FutureScape predictions also showed that the increased use of healthcare data and analytics will have an impact on data encryption. By 2020, 42 percent of all digital healthcare data will be unprotected when it should in fact be protected.

However, specialized IT resources used to support big data are expected to decrease over the next few years, according to the report. Specifically, more than 50 percent of big data issues will be reduced to routine operational IT by 2018.

The report also discusses the increased dependence on external partners for outsourced services. More than 50 percent of health and life science buyers will demand substantial risk sharing by 2018, IDC said. This will ensure that service providers recognize their growing role in the process and deliver added revenues to high performers at the expense of satisfactory or lesser performers.

IDC’s predictions on risk sharing also tie back to the importance of current security risk analyses. These are key tools for healthcare organizations as they can pinpoint areas where electronic protected health information (ePHI) could be at risk. Back in October, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new guidance on when security risk analyses should be conducted.