Reported data breaches show that HIPAA violation settlements are on the upswing, both in terms of the number of individuals affected and financial cost. We’re not done with 2017, yet OCR’s updated breach portal shows that nearly 4 million individuals have been affected by over 200 healthcare data breaches as of mid-September.
Looking back just two years, and the analysis of HHS and OCR publicly reported breaches indicates an increase of 320% in 2016 over 2015’s hacking related healthcare data breaches. It helps to understand that reported breach types can range from hacking to unauthorized access or disclosure of ePHI, to theft of devices.
