Research on Information Security Investment in Healthcare Institutions Under Medical Treatment Combinations

Abstract

The construction of medical treatment combinations (MTCs) is to promote the subsidence of high-quality medical resources but brings third-party risk propagation. This paper develops two models to optimize information security decisions under two types of MTCs. Based on theoretical and numerical analyses, influences of the participation conditions of hospitals and propagation probability on the optimal security decisions and total expected costs are investigated. We find that the security decision under the loose MTC (L-MTC) differs significantly from that under the tight MTC (T-MTC). We also find that the selection of MTCs can be influenced by the participation conditions of hospitals. When the potential loss is large and the potential loss coefficient of the partner hospital is small, T-MTC prevails in information security cost. However, an increase in the propagation probability can extend the trend of the cost advantage under the T-MTC. In contrast, although the area of the cost advantage under the L-MTC is relatively large, the core hospital with the moderate potential loss and the partner hospital with a large potential loss coefficient are prone to form L-MTC from the perspective of their interests.