"How Analytics Tools, Third-Party Tracking Tech Pose Threats to Patient Privacy"
Transferring sensitive data to non-Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)-covered entities may result in compliance complications, data breaches, lawsuits, and patient privacy risks. Third-party tracking tools promise functionality but may transmit sensitive data back to technology companies, potentially threatening the privacy of patients. Multiple high-profile healthcare data breaches and lawsuits against hospitals and technology companies over the use of third-party tracking tools prompted researchers to further examine the trend. Matthew McCoy, assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the study's authors, noted that prior to the study, there had been some investigative reporting on the use of tracking technologies on the websites of small groups of hospitals. McCoy, together with Ari B. Friedman, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and their colleagues set out to explore the prevalence of tracking technologies on hospital websites. The researchers discovered third-party tracking technologies on 98.6 percent of all US nonfederal acute care hospital websites. This article continues to discuss analytics tools and third-party tracking technologies posing threats to patients' privacy.