Across countless industries, there has been a steadily growing trend toward adoption of cloud computing. As cloud computing enters its 18th year1, massive workloads have been migrated to the cloud; cloud laws, standards and best practices have been enacted, and computing, storage, network and security technologies have been invented just for the cloud.
According to a Gartner article published in October 2022, “Worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecast to grow 20.7 percent to total $591.8 billion in 2023, up from $490.3 billion in 2022.”2 The article also explained how cloud computing has paved the way for digital transformation in many industries3.
Why is health care lagging in cloud adoption?
Despite these advances and investments in cloud technology, the health care industry has been slow to transition to the cloud. For a variety of reasons, health care has historically been slow to adopt new systems and when you add on recent challenges like budget constraints, a global pandemic and staffing shortages, hospitals and health systems can struggle to make new technology adoption a priority.
In addition to competing priorities, health systems may have some concerns when it comes to cloud adoption, such as:
- A perceived imbalance of cloud benefits when evaluating cloud migration; often cost savings overshadows the full value realization of the cloud (security, stability, performance and compliance).
- A lack of risk data analysis for outdated, on-premises systems and the uncertainty of how that data will transition to the cloud (patching, firmware levels, ongoing compatibility with dependent connected systems).
- The risk of non-compliance per recommended system settings can make it hard to make an informed decision to move to the cloud.
- Losing discounts on infrastructure and licensing for larger entities may entice health systems to want to stick with on-premises solutions.
What are the benefits of moving to the cloud?
Change can be intimidating, but migrating on-premises systems to the cloud has benefits that can far outweigh the concerns above.
Here are just a few examples of the benefits of transitioning to the cloud:
- Reduce IT burden
A lighter footprint means your experienced IT staff can spend their time on more complex issues.
- Increase security
Cloud technology is secure by design, with built-in data integrity and confidentiality features. Application and system monitoring can provide peace of mind when it comes to protecting health information.
- Improve stability
Cloud solutions have more uptime and users benefit from planned maintenance windows and update times.
The optimal balance of benefits from moving to the cloud should lead to a decision about whether or not certain workloads are suitable for the cloud. However, each organization needs to do a risk analysis based on their unique goals and environments.
What do health care organizations risk not moving to the cloud?
The “why” of cloud computing often remains in the “depends on who you ask” category. This question is easier for products, solutions and companies born in the cloud; for everyone else, the decision to move to the cloud hinges on cost savings and cloud computing benefits, namely scalability, reliability, agility, accessibility, productivity and measurability.
Health care organizations that avoid adopting these strategies could start to lag in innovation due to the advanced benefits of cloud computing such as data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and will continue to be stressed by the nuisances of on-premises systems.
The vision, need and drive for digital transformation often comes from the top, most likely as a result of corporate vision and objectives. Unless an organization believes cloud computing is an integral part of digital transformation, there will always be doubt, or in some cases personal preferences to protect local (on-premises) systems. It is crucial that an organization get buy-in from all technology stakeholders when implementing cloud solutions. Starting with goals for digital transformation and accounting for all inherent benefits of cloud computing will accelerate its adoption.
Recently 3M announced its collaboration with Amazon Web Servies (AWS) to accelerate the innovation and advancement of ambient intelligence. This pairing of 3M cloud-based clinical intelligence with AWS machine learning (ML) services will further enable 3M ambient clinical documentation solutions to unobtrusively support the complex task of documenting the patient interaction, in compliance with applicable laws and guidelines.
No matter what your reservations are today, moving to the cloud is likely inevitable. Health care technology organizations across the globe are expanding their cloud offerings at a rapid pace and realizing the benefits of cloud solutions.
Rajesh Srivastava, CISA, CGEIT, CRISC, PMP, cloud product manager at 3M Health Information Systems
1 https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/
2 “Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Public Cloud End-User Spending to Reach Nearly $600 Billion in 2023” https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-10-31-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-public-cloud-end-user-spending-to-reach-nearly-600-billion-in-2023#:~:text=Worldwide%20end%2Duser%20spending%20on,latest%20forecast%20from%20Gartner%2C%20Inc