Businesses across every industry are experiencing significant benefits from migrating to the cloud – including cost savings, scalability, and reduced pressure on IT teams. The healthcare industry in particular has seen great leaps using cloud computing – indeed, the global healthcare cloud computing market is expected to exceed more than $11 billion by 2022 according to Market Research Engine. But the cloud and healthcare has also seen its fair share of bumps in the road as far as adoption goes. Compliance and regulatory issues surrounding patient data require caution, but healthcare organizations may be taking a bigger risk by not implementing cloud out of such caution.

Take a look at five common myths related to the cloud and healthcare:

Myth #1: The cloud is not secure enough for healthcare organizations. Not only is the cloud secure, but it’s often more secure than on-premise solutions. (And if an organization is looking at desktop as a service specifically, that solution far surpasses on-premise in terms of security.) A cloud provider staffs its data center with armed guards and equips it with tools like security cameras, perimeter controls, multiple power grids, and biometric authentication. It’s not likely that healthcare organizations can practice the same level of security and breach prevention that a cloud provider offers.

Myth #2: Cloud infrastructures are all the same. Sure, the cloud infrastructure consists of network, storage, and compute, but there’s a lot of variation within this framework. Your infrastructure should be designed for your specific needs. It should be highly redundant and secure, and it should support the burstability that is necessary in healthcare during a surge of use. It also needs a high level of monitoring and logging to identify any anomalies in user activity.

Myth #3: Data stored in the cloud is more vulnerable to an attack. Quite the opposite: Data in the cloud may be more secure than data in on-premise servers because it has been encrypted and secured. It’s critical to talk with your cloud provider about the depth of its security policy and whether it meshes well with that of your healthcare organization.

Myth #4: Data stored in a public cloud is accessible to other healthcare providers using the same cloud. If your data is encrypted, other healthcare providers should not be able to access it, but it’s important to talk through this issue with the cloud provider. The shared model of public cloud makes it easy to access innovations and features, but it does require you to do a bit more digging to be sure that your data is encrypted and secured. Private clouds do not allow for this issue.

This also goes back to the point that cloud providers spend more time and resources on security than any healthcare organization could, so healthcare operations in the cloud are better guaranteed to ensure compliance. 

Myth #5: Once data is in the cloud, healthcare providers lose visibility and control. The best way to address this area is to make sure that you extend the same controls you already use into the cloud. This means that your authentication protocols, user management and access management are extended into your cloud solutions. Make sure that you choose a cloud provider that ensures you have an auditable chain of custody for data.

If you still have questions about how cloud solutions could help your healthcare organization achieve business objectives, or if there are a few more myths we need to debunk, contact us at Effortless. You can also take a look at this free download for more information about the cloud and healthcare.