EHR breaches rose 32% in 2011.

• Position: HEALTH RECORDS - Brief article

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Fifty-seven percent of office-based U.S. physicians used electronic health records (EHRs) in 2011, a 12% jump from 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The federal government provides incentive payments to doctors and hospitals who adopt EHRs, but as the amount of digital patient records rises, so do breaches. The number of reported breaches increased 32% in 2011 from 2010, according to the Ponemon Institute, a security research group, Those breaches cost the industry an estimated $6.5 billion last year. In almost half the cases, a lost or stolen phone or personal...