Hwang Taewon, Choi Sung J, Lee Jinhyung
Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
School of Global of Health Management and Informatics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA.
Digit Health. 2025 Sep 4;11:20552076251375930. doi: 10.1177/20552076251375930. eCollection 2025 Jan-Dec.
This study investigates the effect of data breach incidents on IT investment at neighboring hospitals.
Hospital data are collected from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information and matched with the breach archive provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights to construct a set of breached hospitals. Using a community detection algorithm, neighborhoods of hospitals are constructed to serve as the treatment group of breached hospitals against unaffected hospitals. To control for potential differences between affected and unaffected communities, hospitals are matched using propensity score matching. Subsequently, the effect of data breach incidents on IT investment at neighboring hospitals is estimated using a difference-in-differences model.
Analysis of hospital financial data from 2011 to 2017 revealed that neighboring hospitals responded to hacking/IT data breaches with a statistically significant 51% increase ( < 0.05) in IT capital investment in the year following exposure to the breach event. This association was substantially magnified in hospitals with above-median net income, demonstrating a 163% ( < 0.01) increase in IT capital expenditure. However, hospitals with lower net income showed no significant change in IT capital investment. Notably, we observed no statistically significant changes in overall IT expenditure or IT labor costs across any hospital category. Geographically, hacking/IT incidents predominantly occurred in major urban areas where market concentration was lower (HHI of 1243 in treatment groups vs. 1961 in control groups).
Data breaches involving hacking/IT incidents at a neighboring hospital could nudge a hospital toward increased IT capital investment. This may result from neighboring hospitals acknowledging the need to take preventive measures. Hospitals should be strategically encouraged to reinforce cybersecurity capacity to minimize loss from future attacks.
本研究调查数据泄露事件对邻近医院信息技术投资的影响。
从加利福尼亚医疗保健准入与信息部收集医院数据，并与美国卫生与公众服务部民权办公室提供的违规档案进行匹配，以构建一组发生数据泄露的医院。使用社区检测算法构建医院邻域，作为发生数据泄露医院相对于未受影响医院的处理组。为控制受影响社区和未受影响社区之间的潜在差异，使用倾向得分匹配法对医院进行匹配。随后，使用双重差分模型估计数据泄露事件对邻近医院信息技术投资的影响。
对2011年至2017年医院财务数据的分析显示，邻近医院在遭受数据泄露事件后的次年，信息技术资本投资在统计上显著增加了51%（<0.05）。这种关联在净收入中位数以上的医院中大幅放大，信息技术资本支出增加了163%（<0.（此处原文似乎有误，应为<0.01））。然而，净收入较低的医院在信息技术资本投资方面没有显著变化。值得注意的是，我们观察到任何医院类别在总体信息技术支出或信息技术劳动力成本方面均无统计学上的显著变化。在地理上，黑客攻击/信息技术事件主要发生在市场集中度较低的主要城市地区（处理组的赫芬达尔-赫希曼指数为1243，对照组为1961）。
邻近医院发生涉及黑客攻击/信息技术的数据泄露事件可能促使医院增加信息技术资本投资。这可能是因为邻近医院认识到需要采取预防措施。应从战略上鼓励医院加强网络安全能力，以尽量减少未来攻击造成的损失。
