New research from Accenture and the American Medical Association took a closer look at how cybersecurity issues are affecting physicians.
Approximately 1,300 physicians took part in the online survey in July and August 2017.
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The results show that more than four in five doctors (83 percent) have had some type of cyberattack in their practices. And 55 percent of respondents indicated they’re very or extremely concerned about future cyberattacks in their practices.
Why the fear? Physicians backed their concern with a variety of reasons. Seventy-four percent were most worried about the interruption to their practices, 53 percent were concerned about patient safety and 74 percent listed compromising patient records as a key concern.
It’s far from a walk in the park to get things back to normal after a cyberattack. Twenty-nine percent of physicians from mid-sized practices said it takes up to a full day to recover from an attack, and 64 percent of those who experienced an attack had up to four hours of downtime before the system was up and running again.
The most common type of attack appeared to be phishing, which was cited by 55 percent of those who experienced an attack. Computer viruses were the second most popular form of attack, cited by 48 percent of those who had an attack. Ransomware, network hacking and inappropriate insider access were also fairly common.
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Despite these problems, 85 percent of doctors believe it’s important to share electronic personal health information outside their system. The key is to do it safely.
“New research shows that most physicians think that securely exchanging electronic data is important to improve healthcare,” AMA President David Barbe noted in a news release. “More support from the government, technology and medical sectors would help physicians with a proactive cybersecurity defense to better ensure the availability, confidentiality and integrity of healthcare data.”
On the whole, physicians trust third parties to assist with cyber-related problems. Fifty-six percent said they notify their health IT vendor when an attack occurs, and 37 percent obtain training content from their health IT vendor. Slightly less than half of respondents (49 percent) indicated they have an in-house security official.
Within the next year, 33 percent of respondents are likely to implement telemedicine and 28 percent will probably adopt patient-generated health data. But looking ahead, doctors expressed anxiety over how these new technologies and security issues will mix.
More immediately, physicians cited cyber hygiene tips, a risk assessment guide and HIPAA guidelines as helpful types of support tools in the realm of cybersecurity.
Photo: Warchi, Getty Images