Cybersecurity, patient safety in the spotlight

Another week chock full of health IT developments but the most significant had to do with cybersecurity and patient safety.

Congress approved the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA) which incentivizes companies to share cyberthreat data with the government.

Speakers at several conferences have called for this kind of central repository and sharing system to help the healthcare community get a handle on cyberthreats. Under CISA, hospitals and health systems would get liability protections when they share cyberthreat data with the government in an effort to improve its detection, mitigation and response to such issues.

Organizations including CHIME, HIMSS and the Association for Executives in Health Information Security all voiced their support for the law.

The Health Information Trust Alliance also supports the bill, which "recognizes the importance of a health industry specific cybersecurity framework as well as associated guidance and best practices."

It will be interesting to see what impact the measure included in this law will have on cybersecurity in healthcare. Reports showing the high cost of data breaches in healthcare as well as the increasing number of consumers affected by such breaches means it’s certainly time to try something else.

Also this week, the Leapfrog Group issued its annual Hospital Safety Scores which indicate that improvements in patient safety remain elusive.

Of the 28 measures used to calculate the letter grades given to hospitals, on average, hospital performance improved on eight measures, but declined on six measures.  

Since the launch of the Hospital Safety Score in 2012, 133 hospitals have earned an “A” in each of the twice-annual updates—approximately 5 percent of all graded hospitals.

Despite the improvements, hospitals are performing worse on critical measures like foreign objects left in after surgery. Overall, performance on safe practices and process measures varied greatly.

Of the 2,530 hospitals issued a Hospital Safety Score, 773 earned an A, 724 earned a B, 866 earned a C, 133 earned a D and 34 earned an F. 

Here's to better grades next year.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor