The disastrous ransomware attacks on Change Healthcare and Ascension this year ran up staggering costs and put a spotlight on the healthcare sector’s vulnerability.

But healthcare orgs are hardly new to eye-popping bills after a major hack. Analyzing attacks on organizations in 16 countries, IBM/Ponemon Institute has shown healthcare to be the industry with the highest cost per data breach for over a decade, coming in at an average hit of $10.93 million in 2023.

One way healthcare orgs can offset their losses is by purchasing cyber insurance—but underwriters are requiring them to up their cybersecurity game, experts told Healthcare Brew, and they’re growing wary of risks in the sector.

Get me a policy—stat! Back in 2017, roughly 30% of hospitals had cyber insurance—compared to 90% of finance orgs—according to research conducted by Soumitra Bhuyan, an associate professor at Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. A separate survey commissioned by security firm Sophos in 2022 found only 78% of healthcare organizations had cyber insurance in place.

“Surely, [the] rising number of cyberattacks and data breaches in the healthcare sector is pushing healthcare organizations to purchase cyber insurance,” Bhuyan told Healthcare Brew via email. “However, the threshold to qualify to purchase this insurance protection is going up and policies [are] becoming more and more complex.”

Keep reading here.—TM

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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is calling for a warning label to be added to social media platforms in an effort to protect children’s mental health.

While advocates and experts have come out in favor of the idea, they also remain skeptical that a warning would work well enough to reduce the harms of the platforms.

In a New York Times opinion piece published June 17, Murthy wrote that social media is an “important contributor” to the mental health crisis among young people, who spend more than “three hours a day on social media [and] face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms.”

“A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe,” Murthy wrote.

Nicole Hockley, co-founder and CEO of Sandy Hook Promise, an organization working to stop gun violence against children, agreed that a social media warning has potential to help kids.

“Kids are not just little adults. Young people are biologically more vulnerable to social media influencers and advertising, and more likely to engage in impulsive and risky behavior,” Hockley said in a statement. “We must protect children from harm—physically, mentally, and emotionally.”

David Bickham, research director in the nonprofit Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, told Healthcare Brew he is “very supportive of the surgeon general,” but also said that creating a warning that would actually work isn’t so simple.

Keep reading here.—CM

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