This article explores the healthcare industry's emphatic adoption of cloud computing and the benefits and risks of moving to the cloud, including those directly related to HITECH / HIPAA Compliance.
What is the cloud?![]() Is the healthcare industry moving to the cloud?Yes, the healthcare industry is moving to the cloud in a big way and we applaud the move. Cloud economics will contribute to bending the healthcare cost curve, although not nearly as much as creating a functional healthcare marketplace based on patient outcomes and transparent pricing (something we are not likely to see anytime soon). Dr. Halamka does an excellent job in this post in making the argument as to why the healthcare industry has been slow (understatement) to adopt enabling technologies. Fundamentally, his argument can be summarized as a "structural" justification for slow adoption. The industry simply had no real incentive to adopt enabling technologies, the status quo worked just fine (not really) thank you very much. However, now the industry is being pushed to change because of disruptive forces, not all of which are based on government incentives. So healthcare is being hit with a "perfect storm" of change and has decided to embrace cloud computing as part of its change strategy. The industry has not only embraced the cloud but put such a bear hug on it that healthcare is now the fasting growing IT verticle because of it. The movement of the healthcare industry to the cloud is unstoppable, but this should not obscure the real downside risks that must be managed as part of this process. Generally the risks are a direct result of losing control of mission critical applications and infrastructure. Before discussing the risks let's highlight the real benefits that the industry is likely to derive from cloud computing. |
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