Could the Drive to Value-Based Healthcare Undermine Security?

As we all know, the healthcare industry’s move toward value-based healthcare is forcing providers to make some big changes. In fact, a recent report by peer60 found that 64% of hospitals responding cited oncoming value-based reimbursement as their top challenge. Meanwhile, only 30% could say the same of improving information security according to peer60, which recently surveyed 320 hospital leaders.

Now, the difference in concern over the two issues can be chalked up, at least in part, to the design of the survey. Obviously, there’s a good chance that a survey of CIOs would generate different results. But as the report’s authors noted, the survey might also have exposed a troublesome gap in priorities between health IT and the rest of the hospital C-suite.

It’s hardly surprising hospital leaders are focused on the life-and-death effects of a major change in payment policy. Ultimately, if a hospital can’t stay in business, protecting data won’t be an issue anymore. But if a hospital keeps its doors open, protecting patient data must be given a great deal of attention.

If there is a substantial gap between CIOs and their colleagues on security, my guess is that the reasons include the following:

  • Assuming CIOs can handle things:  Lamentable though it may be, less-savvy healthcare leaders may think of security as a tech-heavy problem that doesn’t concern them on a day-to-day level.
  • Managing by emergency:  Though they might not admit it publicly, reactive health executives may see security problems as only worth addressing when something needs fixing.
  • Fear of knowing what needs to be done:  Any intelligent, educated health exec knows that they can’t afford to let security be compromised, but they don’t want to face up to the time, money and energy it takes to do infosec right.
  • Overconfidence in existing security measures:  After approving the investment of tens or even hundreds of millions on health IT, non-tech health leaders may find it hard to believe that perfect security isn’t “built in” and complete.

I guess the upshot of all of this is that even sophisticated healthcare executives may have dysfunctional beliefs about health data security. And it’s not surprising that health leaders with limited technical backgrounds may prefer to attack problems they do understand.

Ultimately, this suggests to me that CIOs and other HIT leaders still have a lot of ‘splaining to do. To do their best with security challenges, health IT execs need the support from the entire leadership team, and that will mean educating their peers on some painful realities of the trade.

After all, if security is to be an organization-wide process — not just a few patches and HIPAA training sessions — it has to be ingrained in everything employees do. And that may mean some vigorous exchanges of views on how security fosters value.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

1 Comment

  • Having read the report, I disagree with the premise that IT security is a lower priority to healthcare professionals than value-based healthcare. Value-based (non-quantifiable, like Meaningful Use) rated as simply more difficult to achieve than security (quantifiable), not that the CEOs gave it less standing.

    In fact, security is the most deterministic (hard, but solvable) problem on that main bar chart. All other issues are “softer” in that they are harder to quantify and address. Does anyone think that our shift to socialized medicine will improve the physician/nurse shortage, or that regulatory compliance problems will not increase?

    Also bothersome is that M&A pie chart in the report showing progression of medical practices being swallowed up, with doctors becoming regular “salarymen” and the practice of medicine becoming as efficient as the British model — Hello wait times.

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