In January 2023, Atlantic General Hospital became the unfortunate victim of a significant cyberattack, leading to a data breach that impacted 30,000 individuals. This breach caused significant network disruptions and potentially exposed a vast range of sensitive patient information, including names, social security numbers, financial details, medical record numbers, treating physicians, and health insurance data. Consequently, a class action lawsuit was initiated against AGH, alleging insufficient data protection measures.
The Impact of the Healthcare Data Breach
The consolidated complaint highlighted that AGH failed to implement the proper security measures to protect its data security systems and safeguard highly sensitive information. It was further argued that the hospital did not adequately inform patients and the public about its lack of appropriate data systems and security practices. The failure to promptly detect and notify affected individuals of the data breach also came under scrutiny.
The plaintiffs asserted that the breach exposed them to immediate risks such as identity theft and the misuse of their personal information. They claimed various injuries due to the hospital’s negligence, including the depreciation of their private data’s value, out-of-pocket costs, and wasted time. Despite AGH not admitting any fault, they opted for a settlement to circumvent the hefty expenses of litigation, resulting in a $2.25 million compensation to the claimants.
How Hospitals Can Mitigate Data Security Risks with RAS
A staggering 80% of critical healthcare data resides outside Electronic Health Records (EHRs), posing significant security vulnerabilities. This data often lacks essential protection, complicating efforts to access, organize, and secure it, particularly during outages or breaches. With RAS by dbtech, however, hospitals can fortify their document and data security, helping them to mitigate the impact of such events.
Secure Document Storing
Our proprietary technology autonomously identifies all captured content, eliminating the need for user intervention. RAS is versatile, working seamlessly with various document and data formats, including reports, forms, images, EDI, PDFs, and data from applications such as HL7 and X12.
Automated Workflows
RAS provides workflow automation tools to capture report data from EHRs, ERPs, and other systems, performing tasks with precision. This automation boosts accuracy, optimizes processes, and saves both time and resources through features like data extraction, auto-printing, emailing, report splitting, and RAS Forms.
Data Archiving Solutions
Our data archiving solutions ensure hospitals maintain compliance while safeguarding patient data across different systems. By consolidating data into a single archival solution, we eliminate the need to maintain multiple legacy platforms.
dbtech: Providing Robust Healthcare IT Solutions
The incident at Atlantic General Hospital underscores the need for robust data archival solutions like dbtech’s RAS to protect sensitive healthcare information. By adopting advanced data storage solutions, hospitals can minimize the impact of healthcare data breaches and ensure patient trust. Implementing such solutions will help strengthen data protection, streamline processes, and maintain compliance with industry standards.
Reach out to dbtech today to discover more about RAS and how we can help bolster your data security measures.