Technology is
constantly evolving, especially in the highly competitive healthcare industry.
Many hospitals have
already undergone changing their legacy systems to include electronic health
records (EHRs), a digital format of paper medical records which was mandated by
the Health Information Technology for
Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) and enforced by
the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009 (ARRA). Such a transformation in healthcare has
provided both administration personnel, physicians, and nurses with timely
access to medical records when needed.
EHRs at many
medical facilities are currently housed on traditional client-server
architectures. IT technology has already helped simplify operations in this
regard, making the process much more efficient and patient-centric than in the
olden days.
Adopting cloud
computing solutions can make healthcare operations even more convenient and
cost effective.
The cloud offers
on-demand computing by using the latest in technology to deploy, access, and
use networked information, applications, and resources. Unfortunately, it also
has a complex infrastructure that may be challenging to understand.
In most cases, end
users are sure to find that cloud computing is the best choice for their
healthcare business, as it’s often less costly than having multiple computers
in various medical rooms — each needing proper hardware, updated software, and
network accessibility to upload, store, and retrieve patient or other medical
data.
Healthcare IT
solutions have offered many worthy benefits to the industry already. And now
that enhanced security and safeguards are in place for cloud computing
solutions, carriers, and service providers, healthcare organizations can rest
easy knowing they’re protected from potential loss of control over certain
sensitive patient data.
With IT spending on
the rise, cloud-based electronic health records (EHRs) is beginning to have an
impact on the health industry.
Risks of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
Lack of security
and privacy are the two primary concerns healthcare providers face when
choosing a cloud solution
In order to
overcome these concerns, healthcare businesses must choose a reliable cloud
provider who acts in complete accordance with the provisions set forth in
the Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.
With massive data
breaches increasingly reported in recent years, there is a growing uneasiness
amongst patients who fear that hospitals and doctors that use a cloud service
provider will complicate privacy of their data. There are also concerns of
allowing multiple users to share EHRs among facilities.
In addition to
patient privacy, data breaches cost healthcare organizations millions and
million of dollars each year. In fact, two of the most recent Cost of a Data Breach Studies from
the Ponemon Institute show that stolen healthcare records cost twice the global
average. The average cost per stolen record was $380 in 2017 (global average
was $141).Such costs can be
devastating for healthcare businesses.
How the Cloud Might Benefit the Healthcare Providers
Despite these
concerns and risk, cloud computing is continually transforming healthcare in
the modern age.
First, as
a Software as a Service (SaaS), the cloud can offer healthcare
organizations on-demand hosted services, providing quick access to business
applications and fulfilling customer relationship management (CRM).
As
an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), cloud solutions can offer on-demand
computing and large storage for medical facilities.
And lastly,
as Platform as a Service (PaaS), the cloud can offer a security-enhanced
environment for web-based services and the deployment of cloud applications.
Transforming
healthcare via the cloud is about more than just the delivery of medical
information from multiple computers at anytime, anywhere, and on any mobile
device. It’s also about the benefits of being able to connect medical centers
and cloud users for the purpose of sharing patients' health data over the
Internet.
Examples of How Cloud Solutions Can Transform Healthcare
Cloud computing is
quickly becoming a necessity in the medical field. It just might be the answer
to help transform healthcare to share patient information between medical
providers on urgent cases in real-time.
Before total
transformation occurs, however, there has to be strategy.
For example, a
feasible cloud strategy for a healthcare facility could be using a public cloud
infrastructure to allow public access to generic health information or retrieve
medical resources. Hospitals and health clinics could even use a public cloud
for remote storage of their own medical data (not the patient’s data).
Essentially, a
public cloud could offer the healthcare industry service agility and cost
savings.
On the contrary, a
private cloud could be implemented to connect healthcare providers to securely
transfer electronic documents and share health information about patients. Such
information might include:
- Clinical applications (EHRs, physician enquiries, pharmacy orders, etc.)
- Non-clinical, healthcare management applications to handle revenue cycle management.
- Patient management such as patient billing and claims.
Whether managed
internally in the data center or hosted externally via a service provider, it’s
important to know that such an infrastructure could provide enhanced privacy
and security over deploying a public cloud strategy.
Although there are
risks to data security for private clouds (as mentioned above), certain
preventative measures — such as utilizing a virtual private network (VPN) — can
be taken to address possible security threats when one has remote access into
the cloud.
A secure, private
cloud environment using policy-based control of computing resources is an apt
solution for cloud consumers to avoid serious vulnerabilities. However, it
still requires specific requirements to only allow authorized personnel to have
access to the data — either hosted internally or externally.
How the Microsoft Cloud is Healing Healthcare
Healthcare
facilities that ultimately decide on a private, public, or hybrid cloud
solution can opt for a virtualization platform at VMware or Microsoft. At
Innovative Architects, we usually recommend choosing Microsoft's secure cloud
platform, which uses Windows Server with Hyper-V and the System Center. This
scalable solution is best able to meet most growing business’s needs, helping
easily power cloud applications and/or supply cloud-based computing and
services .
The Microsoft Azure cloud computing system, in
particular, can provide on-demand simple access to healthcare applications and
data. Using a PaaS environment, Microsoft provides a service to supply
providers with networks, servers, and storage.
Microsoft Azure
complies with the data protection and privacy laws set forth in HIPAA and the
HITECH Act. This system also meets Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) as well as
Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) criteria. Either implement Azure's .NET
Services to integrate public cloud-based applications, or turn to SQL
Server-based data services to properly secure the entire infrastructure.
Regardless of what
cloud service platform you choose or which provider delivers the best service,
the delivery of computing and service must permit sharing of proprietary data
resources to help physicians and healthcare providers to do their jobs
effectively and efficiently. Both the cloud platform and cloud provider must
also ensure all of your digital medical data remains secure and private.
So long as these
conditions are met, there will be less and less resistance to cloud computing
adoption in the healthcare industry.
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