We are constantly hearing about data breaches in the media, one after another, and it seems like no one is taking these breaches seriously enough to take extensive preventative measures. A data breach, not only has a negative effect on the company image, but can also be very costly: Losses in potential clients, penalties, time and money spent on those clients looking to be rectified due to the damages they have suffered; from trusting that company with their personal information.

One example of this is the Anthem data breach. There are customers filing law suits against them for not properly securing their personal information. These are some of the reasons why every organization should take the proper security measures to prevent a breach from happening, but specifically when dealing with people’s personal information in the healthcare industry.

If those reasons are not enough, then perhaps a person’s wellbeing should be considered when devising a data security strategy. When medical records are stolen they can compromise the safety and health of the victims because the history and records of the patient can become falsified: a thief can use the personal information they have stolen to get treated under the victim’s name. This not only can be costly for the victim, as they might be left with paying for medical treatments they did not receive, but can also be harmful to their health as their medical history becomes compromised. According to VentureBeat, “In 2014 medical institutions and healthcare providers made up nearly a third of all data breaches.”

These stats need to change, people have enough to worry about when dealing with medical issues, fraud should not be one of them. It is time for the healthcare industry to look beyond their basic security measures and step up their game, and we can get you started!