by Neil Versel
Verizon Communications on Thursday released a much-hyped report on health data breaches. Many of the headlines elsewhere screamed that breaches of protected health information - as defined by HIPAA - go far beyond the healthcare industry. According to the telecom giant, 90 percent of the industries studied have experienced health data breaches.
(At least one headline was wrong, by the way. Health IT Security incorrectly reported that 87 percent of all PHI breaches took place in the U.S. Verizon simply warned of bias because 87 percent of the incidents it had analyzed were from the U.S. This wasn't meant to be an exhaustive study; it left out all of Latin America, and Africa, plus significant parts of Europe, including Russia.)