7,000+ people affected in New York hospital data breach: 4 things to know

At least 7,000 medical records from New York City-based Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center were exposed by a third-party vendor, NBC News reports.

Here are four things to know.

1. A team of security researchers at MacKeeper Security Research Center discovered the breach earlier this month. Researcher Bob Diachenko told NBC News private patient information was viewable online due to a misconfigured backup server hosted by iHealth, a records management technology provider.

2. The exposed patient information included names, home addresses and medical diagnoses — along with addiction histories, mental health diagnoses, HIV statuses and sexual assault reports — of patients who visited the hospital between 2014 and 2017. Mr. Diachenko told NBC News it's unclear how long patient records were viewable online.

3.iHealth told NBC News it conducted an internal review upon learning of the breach. The vendor said one unauthorized person accessed the data, although there is no evidence that data has been misused.

"While iHealth continues to work with a leading IT security firm to validate its analysis, at this time, iHealth believes that the issue has been contained," iHealth told NBC News.

4. Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center confirmed the exposed patient records in an emailed statement to NBC News and said it is cooperating with law enforcement agencies to address the breach.

Epic, Cerner hold 50% of hospital EHR market share: 8 things to know

In 2016, Epic and Cerner led the EHR market space for acute care hospitals in the United States, with Meditech following close behind, according to the new KLAS US Hospital EMR Market Share 2017.

The data in this study is based on acute care EMR purchasing activity that occurred in the United States from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016.

Here are eight things to know:

1. Epic held 25.8 percent of the U.S. acute care hospital market share, with Cerner (24.6 percent) and Meditech (16.6 percent) coming in a close second and third.

2. All other EHR vendors held 10 percent or less of the market share.

3. Thirteen of 23 contracts for integrated delivery networks (multi-hospital organizations) went to Epic.

4. Small community hospitals — with less than 200 beds — drove EHR purchasing decisions in 2016, accounting for 80 percent of all hospital EHR decisions in the country.

5. The increase in EHR adoption by small hospitals was fueled by the community-specific platforms from Cerner and Epic; acquisition and EHR-standardization activity of larger organizations; as well as an increased interest in athenahealth's new offering.

6. However, customers did complain about the lack of customization capabilities in both Epic and Cerner platforms.

7. While Cerner proved to be the most popular vendor among small hospitals in 2016, athenahealth grew the most.

8. The number of hospitals that contracted with athenahealth more than doubled in 2016, and one-third of the new hospitals included more than 25 beds.