Your data, your patients, your future: Why health care needs the cloud

Marty Puranik: ©Atlantic.Net

The US health care system is built on data, and the volume of data being processed is staggering. With everything now digital, managing the growing volumes of electronic health records in-house has proven extremely challenging.

EHRs can contain detailed patient notes, checkups, reports, data from your wearable devices, or medical imaging files. The shift to digital records has been rapid; HealthIT.gov reports that 96% of non-federal acute care hospitals had already adopted a certified EHR.

It's not uncommon for these records to grow exponentially over time; now multiply this per patient, per practice, per region, and per state, and it's easy to see the scale at which data is ingested.

The health care IT shift

This predicament meets an industry that for decades has been playing catch-up with technology. Add the complexities of HIPAA compliance into the mix, and a historical reluctance to change meant traditional IT Systems are becoming increasingly strained.

Thankfully, these perceptions are changing, and health care professionals are embracing digital transformation and cloud technology, recognizing the clear benefits it can introduce. If any doubt remains, the COVID-19 pandemic frequently reminds us that global health care relies on dependable IT Cloud Platforms.

Why traditional IT models no longer work for medical practices

On-premise IT systems are a significant financial and operational burden for medical practices. Servers, networking, and storage are very expensive to procure, and leasing options remain prohibitively expensive. The ongoing costs add up, you need someone to manage and maintain the servers, a resilient data center to house the equipment, and then the recurring costs of software licensing, support contracts, and upgrades.

The cloud eliminates these concerns because all plans are pay-as-you-go and often come with heavy discounts for one-to-three-year commitments. All you pay is a flat monthly rate for your cloud resources. If you opt for additional managed services such as server management, you will pay a small additional fee for those.

Beyond the compelling cost advantages, on-premise infrastructure can quickly hit capacity thresholds, especially if your practice grows rapidly, or if you haven't accurately forecasted your capacity demands. Again, the cloud removes this concern, cloud platforms can scale significantly. HIPAA-compliant cloud storage scalability is practically infinite. Server capacity requirements are met by horizontal and vertical scaling options.

HIPAA-compliant cloud hosting as the new standard

A key advantage health care organizations experience with cloud platforms is the range of immediate benefits that HIPAA-compliant cloud hosting delivers from day one. HHS mandates that all HIPAA hosting must meet the required administrative, physical, and technical safeguards of HIPAA legislation.

These safeguards address three core areas: the Privacy Rule, governing how patient information is used and disclosed; the Security Rule, detailing necessary data protections; and the Breach Notification Rule, outlining procedures for security incidents.

But before you start, it's essential to get a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in place. Reputable hosting companies will sign a BAA detailing how they will meet and exceed the requirements laid out by HIPAA.

HIPAA-compliant hosting platforms offer a secure environment that protects the integrity of electronic health records. Key protections must include end-to-end encryption throughout the platform, including the networking (VPN), storage, and backup layer. Detailed audit logs are mandatory and need to record all user access requests and log changes made to PHI.

The cloud platform must feature system event logging, real-time monitoring, and proactive threat detection software. Data security is achieved through managed firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, multi-factor authentication, network segmentation, role-based access control, and vulnerability management.

Need for scalable, resilient data storage

Maintaining data integrity is critical for HIPAA compliance. To meet these strict requirements, health care covered entities need storage platforms engineered to be highly secure, with strong data isolation and industry-leading resilience - qualities found in advanced secure block storage platforms.

And offering lightning-quick performance, SBS cloud storage must include comprehensive data protection through real-time snapshots and be capable of failover for disaster recovery.

Cost-effective disaster recovery planning for physicians

Disaster recovery is a mandatory HIPAA requirement; your practice must be able to recover critical IT systems in the event of a major incident. However, disaster recovery is not easy to achieve and it requires a complex server, network, and storage configuration.

Disaster recovery is also extremely expensive for a hot site or a full active-active/active-passive setup. You essentially need to have an entire secondary HIPAA-compliant cloud platform running in a geographically disparate location. Thankfully, with HIPAA hosting, you simply consume the existing DR platform, which is completely managed by the cloud provider.

What to ask your cloud provider

To ensure a cloud provider can support your HIPAA compliance journey, it is important to undertake due diligence to ensure that they are the best provider for your practice.

Here are some thought-provoking questions to consider:

1. Compliance Framework & Partnership:

• Will you sign a comprehensive Business Associate Agreement detailing responsibilities for all services handling ePHI?
• What are your key third-party audits and certifications, and can they be evidenced (e.g., SOC 2 Type 2, HITECH, ISO 27001)
• What are the expected shared responsibilities?

2. Security Infrastructure & Data Protection:

• How is ePHI protected via encryption with your hosting environment?
• What are your capabilities for comprehensive audit logging of ePHI access and critical system security events (including log access, retention, and reporting/SIEM integration)?
• Describe your data center physical security (e.g., access controls, surveillance) and core network security measures (e.g., firewalls, IDS/IPS, segmentation).
• How does your platform approach continuous vulnerability management?

3. Resilience, Incident Management & Support:

• What are your standard provisions for data backup, disaster recovery (including typical RTOs/RPOs), and stated SLAs?
• How do you manage security incidents? What is your documented process for notifying and assisting us in the event of a breach?
• What tiers of 24/7 technical support are available for HIPAA-compliant services?

Better tech = Better care

The digital transformation of health care is an ongoing task for millions of physicians, with the scope changing rapidly as technology moves forward. HIPAA's purpose is to protect patient data through technology, and health care physicians and other clinicians can opt to outsource the complexities of IT management to their chosen HIPAA compliant hosting provider, giving health care professionals time to focus on their patients and better outcomes for their physicians.

Marty Puranik is the founder, president, and CEO of Atlantic.Net, a leading global cloud hosting provider. Marty’s strengths as a leader and visionary have helped him lead a successful business for over three decades. Atlantic.Net thrives thanks to Marty’s strategic acumen, technical prowess, and his valuable, old-fashioned habits of resourcefulness, modesty, and discipline.