More ‘Cloudy’ Days Ahead:
Three Ways the Hybrid Cloud Can
Drive Patient Care and Reduce Cost
Produced in partnership with
For those healthcare organizations still apprehensive about moving to the cloud,
we have news for you: you’re already in it. A recent cloud use study1 found that of
the 928 cloud services currently in use across the average healthcare network only
60 were known to their IT departments.
These cloud applications are accessing and storing both personal and company data
using cloud services – including sensitive medical records. It’s a huge challenge for
healthcare organizations trying to control data leakage. It’s also a major reason more
“For a long time,
analysts have
predicted and
espoused that the
cloud will be the
primary means
of deployment.
We’re getting there
faster than anticipated.”
Greg Pierce
Chief Cloud Officer
Concerto Cloud Services
enterprises are deploying a new type of infrastructure: the hybrid cloud model.
A hybrid cloud is a unified IT approach that connects private-cloud, public-cloud and
on-premise applications so that a healthcare organization can utilize the platforms that
make sense for specific applications. At the same time, a hybrid-cloud approach can
strategically layer managed services to protect data and workloads, ensure compliance
and user access, and help accelerate their approach to IT innovation.
“The cloud has become inevitable,” Greg Pierce, chief cloud officer for Concerto
Cloud Services, explained. “For a long time, analysts have predicted and espoused
that the cloud will be the primary means of deployment. We’re getting there faster
than anticipated.”
“The reality is we in technology and specifically in the healthcare industry live in a hybrid
world. We will always live in a hybrid world,” added Hector Rodriguez, the national
director for Microsoft’s U.S. Health & Life Sciences Industry Technology Unit. “So the
challenge and the opportunity is to manage that hybrid cloud as optimally and as
securely as possible.”
Data, data everywhere…
The timing is ripe for this level of cloud unification. The Internet of Things, clinical data
analytics, mobile health, and modernization mandates such as meaningful use and
ICD-10 are all generating massive data that must be locked down and quickly accessed.
Managing and protecting these burgeoning data stores is overwhelming IT departments
while using only on-premise systems.
Moving some of that data into a secured cloud environment eases physical-server
constraints while still allowing business to function seamlessly. If done properly in
partnership with a cloud service provider that understands healthcare’s unique needs,
the cloud can meet data-security mandates and expand resources in patient care while
also saving time and money.
A movement is already underway. Rodriguez, whose Microsoft team works with health
plans, providers, life-sciences organizations, and health and human services, said that
between 60 percent and 70 percent of these organizations still keep all of their missioncritical applications on premise. The other 30 percent to 40 percent, however, have
extended into the cloud, starting with low- and medium-impact business applications.
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Protecting data: a priority for everyone
Data protection is important to both healthcare and cloud service providers. Financial
cyber threats get a lot of attention: however, stolen healthcare records are actually worth
more on the black market. A pilfered medical record can sell for 10 to 20 times more
than a stolen credit card number, according to the cyber-security company PhishLabs.
A 2014 Ponemon Institute research study indicated the healthcare industry paid $5.4
billion in estimated costs resulting from the previous two years’ worth of data breaches.
“The challenge and
the opportunity is
to manage that
hybrid cloud as
optimally and as
securely as possible.”
Hector Rodriguez
National Director, Health &
Life Sciences Industry Unit
Microsoft US Health &
Life Sciences
And that was before 2015, which Wired magazine deemed “The Year of the Health Care
Data Breach” because of high-profile data heists that compromised millions of medical
records and health insurance accounts.
Data recovery is another area of concern. A 2014 Microsoft security trends report
based on 12,000 anonymous healthcare respondents indicated only 51 percent did
regular system-wide backups. Less than a third had a disaster-recovery plan or even
asset-management policies to do manual inventories.
This means a large number of healthcare organizations are vulnerable to on-premise
data loss and operations shutdowns from manmade or natural disasters. Using
cloud-based services in such times can keep an enterprise in business – and able to
communicate important information to providers, patients and patients’ loved ones.
In recent years, cloud service providers also have broadened their capabilities to
ensure their healthcare customers meet regulatory and legal data-security mandates.
These include global compliance standards such as ISO 27001, EUMC and HIPAA.
Additionally, more cloud service agreements now reflect a commitment to data privacy
and security controls. Cloud service providers who specialize in healthcare also provide
administrative tools and managed services to support healthcare IT teams in maintaining
security standards, user access and control during data archiving and e-discovery.
This not only adds information assurance but also is important during regulatory audits.
New models of healthcare emerging
New Hampshire’s Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center is among the healthcare
organizations leveraging hybrid-cloud services to drive better health outcomes.
It’s the ImagineCare program that leverages hybrid-cloud computing to develop
customized patient care plans. A patient’s health status is monitored through smart
devices that upload data to the cloud, where it is analyzed for trends. A call center
can then reach out to a patient if their analysis indicates a potentially serious risk.
Patients also get reminders and motivational messages to help them stick with their
care plan and avoid unnecessary trips to the emergency room. This reduces the
cost of care as well as readmissions.
“What makes the hybrid model so attractive is its ability to be extremely customizable,”
Pierce said. “If there’s a wide array of compliance issues to be met, specific security
demands can be changed to meet the regulatory demands and best practices
demands. You can move things back and forth in a preconfigured way.”
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Existing applications can also be cloud-enabled, which makes a cloud model more agile.
Healthcare organizations can scale up or down and add resources to a cloud in minutes
or hours, not weeks or months.
Saving money while saving lives
“What makes the hybrid
model so attractive is its
ability to be extremely
customizable.”
Healthcare as an industry is warming to the cloud because of the potential cost savings.
Those costs savings vary – healthcare organizations can save up to 40 percent or more
on long-term hardware, facility and labor costs by moving some assets into the cloud.
Additionally, the hybrid model includes managed private-cloud services for redundancy,
support, monitoring and data security that add incalculable value.
“Breaking down the four walls of the clinical setting has always been a goal, but it’s
Greg Pierce
been an elusive goal,” Pierce said. But the potential savings, along with high availability
and lower recovery times for hybrid clouds, is driving stronger demand within the
healthcare industry.
As confidence in cloud security and concern over on-premise data management
limitations grows, more healthcare organizations will turn to a hybrid-cloud platform.
Already EMR vendors such as Epic, Cerner and Allscripts are adopting cloud
components into their solutions.
“Cost isn’t the only reason organizations are adopting the cloud,” Rodriguez said.
“It’s about speed to market. It’s about enabling new business models such as population
health and community health. It’s about being able to extend the electronic medical
recording into the community by taking those patient records out of the four walls of
the clinical setting and making it a much more holistic and consumer-driven platform
instead of an on-premise-only, episodic platform.”
1
SkyHigh Cloud Adoption & Risk in Healthcare Risk Report, Q2 2015
About Concerto Cloud Services:
Concerto Cloud Services combines superior service and technical support to offer organizations private and hybrid
cloud solutions with the highest levels of performance, security and speed. The Concerto Cloud team specializes in
the rapid deployment of complex enterprise applications with seamless integrations across on-premise, third party
and public cloud solutions to deliver a customizable, hybrid cloud platform. Advanced compliance and regulatory
certifications, strict adherence to ITIL standards, 24/7 support and a 99.99 percent guaranteed uptime have earned
Concerto an industry-leading customer retention rate and recognition as a pioneer in cloud computing. Including
Microsoft’s U.S. Independent Software Vendor (ISV) of the Year for Cloud Solutions and Talkin’ Cloud’s Top 100
Cloud Provider list.
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