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4 Reasons Healthcare is Moving to the Cloud€¦ · 26% of healthcare organizations find...

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Page 1: 4 Reasons Healthcare is Moving to the Cloud€¦ · 26% of healthcare organizations find cybersecurity concerns restrict their cloud usage. However, only 7% have experienced any security

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4 Reasons Healthcare is Moving to the Cloud

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Gone are the days of healthcare organizations wondering if they need to utilize the cloud. They must now decide how to best utilize it.

Business and tech leaders report that increasing cloud usage is one of their top priorities,1 and adoption rates in healthcare mirror that trend. In early 2019, HIMSS reported that 39% of IT workloads were deployed in the cloud in healthcare organizations.2 That number is expected to reach 50% by early next year.

Healthcare organizations are coming to the cloud for a multitude of reasons. Some are attracted by the broad range of cloud-based offerings, while others are interested in a specific cloud-enabled

The Cloud Evolution in Healthcaresolution. Those organizations that begin their cloud journey with a specific solution in mind typically end up broadening their scope to enjoy even greater benefits.

Many of cloud’s greatest benefits apply especially well to healthcare. This guide looks at four of them in particular:

1. Supports data security

2. Provides cost savings and efficiencies

3. Unifies disparate systems

4. Enhances consumer experience

The global cloud computing market, including cloud platforms, business services, and SaaS, will exceed $200 billion

in 2019 — still growing at more than 20% CAGR.

Forrester

1 Forrester Report2 HIMSS

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Cloud Enables Robust Data SecurityData security has been a hot-button topic ever since cloud storage came into prominence, but doubts over public-cloud security are subsiding, and with good reason. Cloud vendors take security extremely seriously because their ability to keep data safe is integral to their business.

The perimeter surveillance instituted by cloud vendors is automated, built, and maintained by security architects with extensive cybersecurity expertise to protect from external threats. These same security architects work in tandem across networks and continents to tackle invasive threats. They perform thorough and frequent system audits with vigilance on access controls for both internal and external threats. The skill and capability of these dedicated security specialists, along with the high number of specialists, is more than many healthcare organizations can afford to dedicate to security themselves.

BENEFIT 1

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Stats from the healthcare industry reflect both the initial concern and improved security that cloud brings. According to HIMSS, 26% of healthcare organizations find cybersecurity concerns restrict their cloud usage. However, only 7% have experienced any security concerns known to be related to the cloud.3

This illustrates that the cloud is more secure than many believe, and the security benefits go beyond keeping data safe. Disaster recovery significantly improves with cloud, with multiple off-site data centers ensuring that interrupted functionality can be restored in seconds. A single, isolated event is unlikely to cause a large-scale outage. This is often a vast improvement in disaster recovery compared to on-premises data centers.

For many healthcare organizations, protected health information or personally identifiable information isn’t at stake with the cloud. Many useful cloud-based solutions are utilized to pass basic information to patients, such as provider office locations, phone and contact information, hours of operation, provider credentials and publicly available photos, maps, or clinical patient instruction documents. The benefit of cloud-based applications is they can serve up this key information to patients and consumers in a way that is seamless and intuitive as they navigate through a public website or access digital health applications and tools.

3 HIMSS

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Cloud Provides Cost Savings and EfficienciesWhile no organization is immune to budget concerns, healthcare organizations definitely feel the crunch. Cost-saving solutions that can be generated through greater efficiencies and consolidated processes demand consideration. These cost reductions are welcomed by patients and support the viability of the organization as a whole.

Moving to the cloud often provides these crucial cost savings. The wide variety of cloud solution offerings enables you to reduce hardware and software costs across the board. That the cloud is scalable means you won’t be paying for bandwidth until you need it. This means you’re never paying for what you don’t need.

The way in which you pay for your computing changes when you move to the cloud, as well. Rather than purchasing hardware as a one-time cost, you will instead likely move to a subscription-based model.4 This has the benefit of not being stuck with a sunk investment and, again, allows you to only pay for what you need.

The cloud also delivers cost savings through its many use cases. With most cloud-based solutions, a core IT security and administrative setup effort can be leveraged across multiple hospital system departments. There are often pre-existing set-up instances available from cloud-provider partners that can dramatically cut costs and accelerate implementation. And the cloud is ideal for multi-region or multi-state healthcare systems needing secure, consistent, and reliable high-performance data delivery to multiple care locations.

BENEFIT 2

4 Green House Data

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Data is king in most organizations, but there is no industry where this is more true than in healthcare. Without the cloud, data is often stored in disparate, disconnected systems. This means that organizations are losing an opportunity to streamline their activities and deliver to their customers.

Cloud fixes this by allowing disparate systems to speak to each other and share information. This is critical in healthcare, where data is of paramount importance. On top of that, many tools that can be built on the cloud, such as data lakes, pull data together all in one place.

A classic example in healthcare is the adoption of cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) solutions such as CRM packages. With these, the customer or patient data can be pooled, kept

secure, and shared between marketing and lead generation efforts, patient experience representatives and care providers, foundation or fundraising professionals, HR hiring teams, and others.

A common concern often encountered in healthcare is the accumulation of overlapping tools and software solutions – issues that also arise when varied systems and departments are not connected and not sharing and leveraging similar technology platforms.

Cloud solutions provide a sensible alternative. Not only can your IT manager monitor and properly administer particular software installations in a consistent way, but they can also readily provide the necessary 10,000-foot view to all the technology solutions in use by various teams, and provide options for unified tools that are more secure, more powerful, and more easily supported.

Cloud Unifies Disparate Systems

BENEFIT 3

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Cloud Enables an Enhanced Consumer ExperienceHealthcare organizations are increasingly moving to the cloud because of the improvements it brings to the patient experience. As discussed earlier, cloud brings data together on the back end. This can be crucial for the consumer, because not only do they have improved access to their information, but so does everyone who requires it. More and more, patients expect and demand instant, online access to their health records, and grow impatient with repeatedly providing current and vital details to various healthcare professionals. These details could – and should – be obtained by referencing a unified health data file.

BENEFIT 4

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In many cases, healthcare organizations face the challenge of keeping pace with online consumer experiences. The bar set by Amazon, Google, and other large online content and service providers applies to all industries – including healthcare. Not all healthcare companies can match the budgets of Microsoft or Apple, but consumers don’t consider that. They want their online experience making an appointment with their doctor to be as easy as buying a pair of shoes online, and they want the ability to do it whenever and wherever they want.

Fortunately, many cloud-based applications provide a head start for most standard healthcare use scenarios. A template or proof of concept is often already available from cloud-based solution providers. And in some cases, a cloud-based solution is the only option available. A case in point is the large AI-powered search solution company Coveo, which stopped offering custom search tools hosted on customers’ on-premises data centers. Their core requirement of “cloud only” is becoming the norm across the industry.

Finally, cloud offers an ideal, flexible foundation for future expansion. The cloud is not a place, but instead a collection of tools to modernize business processes and enable transformation. Data transfer technologies such as APIs can be easily integrated with most cloud-based solutions. These tools, in turn, improve patient-facing interactions on websites and other digital platforms, providing a smoother, modern experience to the user.

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The Future of Cloud in HealthcareMany more healthcare companies are turning to cloud to address everything from security concerns to connecting disparate systems. Cloud has more to offer than these things, of course, particularly for organizations with advanced IT teams.

However, healthcare organizations that don’t need these benefits and aren’t looking for things like the ability to build and deploy cloud apps don’t need to pay for them as part of their solution. Cloud vendors are becoming more attuned to this, too, which is why many are now offering industry-specific offerings.

There is no better time for healthcare organizations to move to the cloud. Those that don’t move to the cloud now are at risk of being left behind.

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From healthcare-focused clouds to financial services and insurance clouds, enterprises will seek platforms run by companies that understand their

business and their industry. We are already seeing SaaS vendors doubling down on integration and extending their platform beyond the first set of

features that established them in their markets.

Forrester

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Why PerficientCloud is an investment in efficiency and focus. Our cloud service offerings provide the enterprise services and collaboration tools you need to efficiently create customer value inside and outside your healthcare organizations, as well as communicate and collaborate with one another and your partners.

We leverage best practices crafted over the course of nearly a decade of cloud implementations with Global 2,000 firms across industries. Our award-winning partnerships with leading cloud vendors, combined with our team of more than 300 certified cloud consultants, deliver the business outcomes you need wherever you are in your cloud transformation. From large organizations with legacy hardware constraints to smaller teams with bandwidth and resource limitations, we can help you at every point in your cloud journey.

Our strategic focus and collaborative methodology encourage a holistic approach to cloud. With that in mind, we also provide advanced operational management, data management, strategy, solution hosting, and monitoring solutions. This allows you to rapidly deploy, identify, and address issues, as well as continue to easily grow your portfolio of technology solutions to meet your growing business needs.

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Perficient + HealthcareWe bring deep experience in all aspects of cloud-based healthcare deployments (public, private, hybrid SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS). Leverage our cloud expertise to help you select the right vendor environment and craft a migration plan that maximizes value while minimizing risk. With expertise in system integration and application security, we can engage from concept and architecture through testing, implementation, transition, and production go live.

Healthcare organizations turn to us to help solve their most complex business and technology challenges. Whether it’s keeping pace with today’s digital transformation and cross-channel experience demands, improving operational efficiency, or dealing with the complexities of regulatory reform, we’re helping redefine the future of healthcare for consumers.

Red Hat + HealthcareRed Hat cloud products are consistent, enterprise-class environments that bridge the physical and virtual inside your datacenter and public clouds. Red Hat technologies provides flexibility to adapt to change at a moment’s notice, while simplifying IT and controlling costs.

Open source helps healthcare get better. Unlike proprietary solutions, open source software is collaboratively created by hundreds of thousands of developers – including the very people from the healthcare industry who use and improve the software to meet their needs.

Red Hat open source development model is a rapid, highly innovative, and cost-efficient approach to making software that’s well-suited to the critical IT demands of the healthcare industry.

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Meet the Author

Wayne AuseLead Business Consultant, Healthcare Strategy

Wayne’s digital experience spans healthcare, education, manufacturing, and a range of additional B2B and B2C industries. With a core grounding in marketing and communications strategies, Wayne has expertise applying these fundamentals in a rapidly changing digital environment. He leverages this knowledge to support healthcare clients by transforming mobile and website experiences to maximize engagement and improve competitive performance. By combining customer strategies with consumer data, and applying knowledge of digital trends, Wayne helps clients build innovative and engaging digital experiences that lead to better patient outcomes. Prior to joining Perficient, Wayne managed the consumer-facing digital experience for PeaceHealth medical system based in Vancouver, Washington.

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Let Perficient help you on your digital transformation journey.Perficient is the leading digital transformation consulting firm serving Global 2000® and enterprise customers throughout North America. With unparalleled information technology, management consulting and creative capabilities, Perficient and its Perficient Digital agency deliver vision, execution and value with outstanding digital experience, business optimization and industry solutions.

PERFICIENT.COM/GUIDESPERFICIENT.COM/BLOGS (855) 411-PRFT(7738) [email protected]


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