Page 86 - Cyber Defense eMagazine June 2020 Edition

Looking at these statistics we can see that there is an urgent need for designing and implementing
efficient data security controls in healthcare. To understand these issues, we first need to look at the

landscape of healthcare and what makes it vulnerable. Why hackers want health data? And what can be
done to ensure the security of data.

Healthcare industry and information technology

Last decade has witnessed a drastic change in the fundamental business processes in the healthcare

industry. Global health care expenditures are expected to continue to rise as spending is projected to
increase at an annual rate of 5.4 percent between 2017-2022, from USD $7.724 trillion to USD $10.059
5
trillion .Key stakeholders of healthcare i.e. patients, providers, payors, and policymakers (4P’s) are now
6
looking for innovative patient care services which are cost-effective, technology-enabled, easy to access
and avail anywhere breaking the boundary of hospital walls. The healthcare environment is becoming
more and more complex wherein patient care service are now not limited to hospitals but also at their

home which may be in a different city or even a different country. Healthcare service providers such as:
doctors, nurses, pharmacists, administrative staff, technologists and technicians, therapists work in
different locations and use different information systems to manage healthcare data at their end. Payors

in healthcare are entities (e.g. insurance providers) that take care of the financial aspect of health
7
services which involves processing of patient eligibility, services, claims, enrollment, or payment . Finally,
policymakers are the one who establishes the framework within which health care is provided to the
country's citizens. It is evident that there is a strong relationship between these key stakeholders which
entirely depends on the collaboration of data which in turn is becoming a driving force behind the adoption

of healthcare information systems (HIS).

Technologies such as cloud computing, Big data, virtual reality, artificial Intelligence and analytics have
played a significant role in the evolution of healthcare information systems (HIS). These technologies are
used to provide a networked HIS wherein data from each stakeholder of the healthcare industry can be

8
stored and shared for compilation, analysis and synthesis, and communication and use . The global
healthcare information systems market size is expected to reach USD 169.2 billion by 2025, registering

a 7.7% CAGR during the forecast period .
9

5 https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/life-sciences-and-healthcare/articles/global-health-care-sector-outlook.html
6 https://jln1.pressbooks.com/chapter/3-introducing-the-key-stakeholders-patients-providers-payors-and-policymakers-
the-four-ps/
7 https://blog.definitivehc.com/top-healthcare-payers
8 https://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/toolkit_hss/EN_PDF_Toolkit_HSS_InformationSystems.pdf
9 https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/jvdvpz/the_global?w=5

Cyber Defense eMagazine –June 2020 Edition 86
Copyright © 2020, Cyber Defense Magazine. All rights reserved worldwide.