Survey: Ransomware Affects 58% of Health Orgs

COVID brought with it many changes, including the rapid, widespread digital transformation in the healthcare space, a switch characterized by telemedicine becoming the norm for everyday medical appointments.

A recent survey found that 56% of hospital and health system leaders have plans to increase their investments in telemedicine over the next two years, a sign that the sector expects these shifts to last.

But healthcare organizations that embrace telehealth need to be ready to set up stringent authentication rules and procedures for strong identity verification.

Remote user ID verification in healthcare brings with it unique challenges, as the nature of the industry dramatically increases the risk for serious consequences, including medical errors, violations of patient privacy and cybersecurity threats.

The Importance of Digital Identity Verification for Security

Hackers are drawn to virtual healthcare as it offers them a feast of vulnerable data, with services often happening right on a patient’s smartphone or laptop. Recent research has shown a rise of security risks in healthcare for both patients and providers, which makes it all the more urgent that health providers adopt digital identity verification.

Eighty-five percent of healthcare organizations reported witnesses increasing risks over the last year, with 58% of IT professionals saying their organizations were hit by ransomware attacks.

A third of potential patients reported becoming victims of healthcare cybersecurity attacks, and with 430 million connected medical devices in use around the globe, the threat of healthcare-related cyberattacks has never been higher.

All the same, the convenience of smartphone access in particular appears to be a powerful incentive for many healthcare consumers. A survey by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 61% of Americans want to be able to access their health data via mobile devices. This interest is especially high among millennial healthcare consumers, at 67%.

For more on the benefits of digital identity verification for healthcare organizations, download the Digital Identity Tracker, a PYMNTS and Jumio collaboration.