How patients can protect themselves in the wake of recent medical data breaches in Rhode Island

Last month, Wood River Health announced a data breach that affects nearly 55,000 patients in Rhode Island and Connecticut. It was the latest in a string of instances that have seen hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders’ personal health data exposed.

Morning Host Luis Hernandez spoke with Lee Kim, senior principal of cybersecurity and privacy of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, about what Rhode Islanders can do to protect themselves if their personal data is compromised in a data breach.

Interview highlights

On what patients can do, generally, to protect their personal information

Lee Kim: Healthcare is about trust, so there is some degree of responsibility on the provider. But there is so much that we do online to converse with our doctor and to pull o