Survey: Patient Data Protection Problematic in Large Hospitals

Stronger federal regulations over patient data protection have had no significant effect on the way 65 large health organizations manage records, according to a survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute.

The survey, sponsored by ID Experts, states that 71 percent of respondents do not believe that added privacy and security protections mandated under the HITECH Act (which was passed into law as part of the Recovery Act in 2009) have significantly changed their management of patient records. Survey takers came from the data protection, security, privacy or compliance fields.

A majority of respondents--70 percent--also report that protecting patient data is not a top priority and 67 percent of surveyed hospitals say they have fewer than two staff dedicated to data protection management. Oftentimes--in 41 percent of cases--hospitals rely on patients to inform them that a breach occurred.