Hospital CIOs Get Heads Out of The Cloud, And Applications Into It!

Cloud computing has matured to the point where the question is no longer if you will use it, but when. Cloud computing provides a flexible, secure, scalable environment with real cost advantages. In other words: Do more for less. The achievement of this lofty goal is accomplished with a few important parameters.

For productive use in a healthcare setting, your cloud solution provider must guarantee the following:

  • Security
  • High performance
  • Return on investment
  • HIPAA compliance beyond security
  • A private option

Done correctly, the cloud environment is more secure than your own data center, and provides better performance for less money. Choosing an enterprise-grade cloud provider with a focus on healthcare is the key. If implemented correctly, you will save hard dollars and become more agile in the process.

There are also manpower benefits associated with offloading ancillary application management. Most often, hospitals are consumed with their core clinical and financial applications, when they should be moving their niche, non-mission critical applications to the cloud. This is the simplest and fastest way to capitalize on the cloud.

Additionally, the right provider ensures both security and HIPAA compliance. Not all clouds are the same. There are variations to cloud computing; Public, private, hybrid and community are some of the implementation models. Your cloud provider should work with you to match your needs to the right environment.

In Atlanta, Emory Healthcare turned to the cloud for several ancillary applications and as a result, reduced costs and IT staffing burdens. Dee Cantrell, CIO of Emory Healthcare, states, "instead of paying lofty, upfront software and hardware costs, we request that all vendors deliver their software as a service within our cloud environment." For Ms. Cantrell and many other healthcare CIOs, cloud computing is a cost-effective solution to balance burgeoning IT demands with limited staff and budget.

Emory Healthcare Results
ISP costs reduced 50 percent
Annual hardware costs reduced 30 percent
Archive storage costs reduced 60 percent
IT staffing burdens eliminated

More Articles on Cloud Computing:

5 Best Practices for Negotiating, Beginning the Transition to Cloud Servers
Creating Clarity Around the Cloud: A Healthcare Transformation Forecast
10 Best Practices for Choosing a Cloud Storage Partner

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