The healthcare cloud is slowly becoming a permanent fixture for hospitals as a means to host data and applications. According to a Forbes report, the average healthcare organization uploads 6.8 terabytes of data through 928 cloud applications each month.
Paul Cioni, senior vice president of service and delivery at Velocity Technology Solutions, a global cloud hosting platform, says that hospitals and healthcare organizations are increasingly finding new benefits associated with using the cloud. As such, healthcare providers are exploring the cloud's uses more.
Here are five key thoughts on healthcare cloud computing from Mr. Cioni.
1. On how and why hospitals are moving to the cloud: "Today, especially in healthcare, the de facto method or mode of hosting critical applications, those that impact patient care and patient safety, still is internal hosting. The move to the cloud in healthcare has been gradual with one or two or maybe three options for deployment…Then we find some customers, because of the need to spin out or acquisition or divestiture, going all in. I don't know if that's yet because they believe in cloud and they're embracing the cloud paradigm, or it really is just they have no other choice [given their changing circumstances]. Finally, I think there are point cloud functions that are starting to becoming commonplace, whether that be augmenting your data retention strategy with a secure cloud backup platform or potentially using cloud [just] because the CIO recognizes he just can't do it all."
2. On the cloud being indicative of the present times: "We're climbing the edge of the bell curve of at least private cloud adoption within healthcare. More and more healthcare CIOs are saying, 'I can do more in the cloud.' We've gotten to the point where if the CFO says to his CIO or the CEO says to his CIO, 'Are we embracing the cloud?' and the CIO says no, he or she looks a little bit behind the times or a little bit too set in his or her ways. But I do think that it's an evolution for most CIOs rather than a 'Let me outsource all of my apps.'''
3. On the cloud as a new standard in healthcare: "The cloud is far from the new standard. However, it does get entertained in almost every discussion…Instead of, 'Why consider a cloud option?' it has become 'Why not consider a cloud option?' And though it may still not be the winner or even in the top two or three [solutions], it is making the short list."
4. On setbacks to the cloud: "The most often cited reasons to not transition to the cloud have come to be, first of all, security. That said, we can look at a…survey on cybersecurity taken in 2014 where negligent insiders are perceived by CIOs as a larger security threat than malicious outsiders.
The second reason is a perceived loss of control. That's a server that doesn't live in my data center anymore, so I can't control it."
5. On the permanence of the cloud: "CIOs and all technologists realize that cloud computing is here to stay and that public and virtual private clouds have to be in their solution consideration as they look from challenge to challenge to challenge…There's just too much scale and too much inertia behind this movement to the cloud. We've got five or 10 years before we see mostly everything being delivered in a cloud service…Most folks will look to the cloud."
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