Four in Five U.S. Physicians’ Clinical Practices Have Experienced a Cyberattack

Research from Accenture and the American Medical Association (AMA) reveals a sobering statistic about cybersecurity: “more than four in five U.S. physicians (83 percent) have experienced some form of a cybersecurity attack.” The study, which you can access here, serves as an important call-to-action for physicians. It’s not “if,” but rather “when,” they will be impacted by a cyberattack; cybersecurity must be a priority.

According to Accenture and AMA, “physicians were most concerned that future attacks could interrupt their clinical practices (cited by 74 percent), compromise the security of patient records (74 percent) or impact patient safety (53 percent).” Sixty-four percent of all those who had been victims of cyberattacks reported up to four hours of downtime. Nearly a third of medium-sized practices reported nearly a full day of downtime.

It’s also important to note that HIPAA compliance alone, as reported by 83% of physicians, is “insufficient” as an approach to “assessing and prioritizing risks.” Accenture and AMA say these results point to the need for “more support from the government, technology and medical sectors [to] help physicians with a proactive cybersecurity defense to better ensure the availability, confidentially and integrity of health care data.”

MLMIC recommends that all healthcare providers take a proactive and diligent approach to cybersecurity. Utilizing experts in the field, practices can better understand where they’re vulnerable and put in place proper security measures, including education for office staff about common forms of cyberattacks.