RIYADH — New findings from an Accenture survey show that when it comes to their health data, Saudi consumers have more confidence in their government (79 percent) than any other country surveyed. Hospitals (76 percent), physicians (75 percent) and pharmacies (74 percent) were not far behind.

The seven-country survey of 7,580 consumers, including 850 from Saudi Arabia, looked to assess attitudes toward healthcare data, digital trust, data sharing and breaches.

Dr. Majid M. Altuwaijri, managing director, health & public services Middle East said: “As technology continues to shape our future, there is no doubt that breaches will become increasingly inevitable. It is critical that the Saudi government and healthcare organizations examine digital trust and understand the impact of breaches, to be able to anticipate risks and be prepared to deal with situations in a more effective, calculated way. Most importantly, organizations can take certain key steps towards strengthening their cybersecurity capabilities. These include, handling breaches quickly, reducing recovery time to minimize impact on patient care, communicating threat information as well as actions taken, and embracing an end-to-end cyber defense.”

While healthcare providers generally have security and privacy protection measures in place, health data is still being breached. A significant minority of consumers have personally experienced a breach of their healthcare data — with breaches in Saudi Arabia almost three times higher (35 percent) than other countries surveyed. The three most common places for this to happen are the hospital (43 percent), physician’s office (25 percent) and pharmacy (24 percent).

The survey found that medical information is far more commonly breached in Saudi than personal information, when it comes to healthcare data. Of those surveyed, some 75 percent of Saudis indicated that they have had their medical data breached, while just 32 percent indicated the same for personal data.

In response to the breach of their healthcare data, nearly nine out of ten Saudis surveyed (89 percent) took action to protect their data. Changing passwords or other credentials (30 percent) and getting legal help (30 percent) were the two most common steps. Involving the police (19 percent) and subscribing to an identity protection service (18 percent) were the next most popular responses to healthcare data breaches.

Among those who experienced a breach, 55 percent feel that the situation was handled very or somewhat well. However, overall, Saudis lost more trust in their healthcare organization than they gained. 42 percent said they had a little less or much less trust in the organization, 26 percent said their level of trust remained unchanged and 32 percent said they gained additional trust in their healthcare organizations. — SG