Cloud Adoption On The Rise, Though Security Concerns Remain

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

A survey reveals sluggish cloud adoption is the result of lingering data security concerns.

Despite the many benefits of cloud computing, it seems healthcare organizations are slow to make the transition.

A recent white paper by the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2) examines the reluctance of most healthcare organizations to migrate clinical data to the cloud and describes how cloud vendors are addressing providers’ concerns. The study also discusses key benefits of partnering with a cloud services provider and explores different types of cloud structures that might suit different providers for their data storage and software maintenance needs.

In the study, Answers to Healthcare Leaders’ Cloud Questions, researchers examine why healthcare has been such a slow cloud adaptor. According to a KLAS Research survey in 2011, only 55 percent of healthcare providers had any data in the cloud and that nearly a quarter of this group – largely physician practices and small community hospitals – had remotely hosted EHRs. Overall, respondents were reluctant to migrate their main information systems to the cloud.

And HMISS found that, while cloud adoption was instituted for reasons of cost (56 percent), speed of deployment (53 percent), insufficient internal staff/expertise (52 percent), disaster recovery (50 percent), demand for scalable, 24/7 solution (45 percent), regulatory compliance (42 percent), security (27 percent), and workforce mobility (27 percent), it also demonstrated the primary reasons for resisting cloud migration remained security (62 percent), a focus on in-house IT operations (42 percent), and availability and uptime concerns (39 percent).

Other surveys and iHT2 interviews have revealed similar concerns with cloud migration, but it is clear that these are diminishing concerns as providers identify the greater benefits of going to the cloud, including reduced infrastructure costs, enhanced security, scalability, speed of deployment, expertise of cloud services, universal accessibility and sharing capabilities, and efficient use of health IT staff.

Although 27 percent of healthcare organizations surveyed by HIMSS stated that they adopted cloud computing for security reasons, iHT2 interviews revealed there is still lingering distrust of cloud security among HIT professionals.

Among the action points of the white paper are:

• Healthcare providers are feeling more comfortable regarding cloud security, in part due to BAAs, and cloud service providers say their data centers are more secure than on premise operations due to their expertise.
• HIPAA rules mean that cloud vendors must pay more attention than before to regulatory issues, and have increased obligations to protect security and report breaches.
• Cloud services have less downtime than typical healthcare systems and can provide superior disaster recovery and backup resources.
• Cloud services can also provide much more bandwidth availability at much lower costs, making it a cost-effective solution to data storage.
• Costs are starting to even out, and one cloud vendor says that providers can save 20 percent over a five year period by adopting a private cloud, or 40 percent in the public cloud.
• In terms of complexity, both vendors and providers agree that management in the cloud actually should be less complicated than using an on premise system.

Transitioning to the cloud can free up in-house IT staff to focus on other, more vital projects for their healthcare organization.