Research on healthcare data sharing in the context of digital platforms considering the risks of data breaches.

Background: Within China's healthcare landscape, the sharing of medical data has emerged as a pivotal force propelling advancements in the insurance sector and enhancing patient engagement with healthcare services. However, medical institutions often exhibit reluctance toward data sharing due to apprehensions regarding data security and privacy safeguards. To navigate this conundrum, our research introduces and empirically validates a model grounded in evolutionary game theory, offering a robust theoretical framework and actionable strategies for facilitating healthcare data sharing while harmonizing the dual imperatives of data utility and privacy preservation.

Methods: In this paper, we construct an evolutionary game model involving medical institutions, big data innovation platforms, and insurance companies within the context of digital platforms. The model integrates exogenous causes of data breaches, endogenous causes of data breaches, compensation payments, government penalties, subsidies, unreasonable fees, claims efficiency, and insurance fraud.

Results: The stability analysis of the evolutionary game identifies eight equilibrium points among medical institutions, platforms, and insurance companies. Numerical simulations demonstrate convergence toward strategy E ₇ = (0, 0, 1), suggesting a trend for medical institutions to adopt a fully anonymous information-sharing strategy, platforms to implement strict regulation, and insurance companies to opt for an auditing approach. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the parameters selected in this study significantly influence the players' behavioral choices and the game's equilibria.

Conclusions: When breaches occur, medical institutions tend to seek co-sharing between platforms and insurance companies. This promotes enhanced regulation by platforms and incentivizes insurance companies to perform audits. If the responsibility for the breach is attributed to the platform or the insurance company, the liability sharing system will push healthcare organizations to choose a fully anonymous information sharing strategy. Otherwise, medical institutions will choose partially anonymous information sharing for more benefits. In case of widespread data leakage, the amount of compensation shall augment, and the role of compensation shall replace the role of government supervision. Then, the government shall penalize them, which shall reduce the motivation of each subject.