While businesses worldwide have been falling over themselves to push their corporate workloads into the cloud, the same cannot be said for organizations operating in the healthcare industry — even though the flexibility, scalability and cost savings afforded by the cloud are all benefits that health companies would embrace in a heartbeat.
Yet there is one healthcare provider that is bucking the trend and has adopted cloud-based services with open arms. In fact, Creative Solutions in Healthcare may just be the only health organization that is operating totally in the cloud.
Founded in 2000 and currently operating dozens of hospice and elder care facilities, Creative Solutions is running 43 different applications in the cloud, including accounting applications, maintenance software and its electronic health records, according to the firm’s CIO, Shawn Wiora.
100% in the Cloud
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“We are the first healthcare company, to my knowledge, that is 100% in the cloud,” said Wiora, adding that the organization has been fully in the cloud since the start of this year.
During a session at the recent Constellation Research Connection Enterprise conference in California, Wiora addressed the room grasping a thick bound copy of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations.
He emphasized that “there is nothing in HIPAA that prevents you from going to the cloud,” yet many companies believe they can’t. Wiora challenged other healthcare organizations to follow suit and start moving more of their workloads to the cloud.
“I’ve been very public about the fact that if you’re not in the cloud, you’re doing a disservice to your patient,” he added.
The main benefit, in Wiora’s eyes, is that Creative Solutions can now focus on its patients, instead of worrying about its IT infrastructure. He said that the cloud negates the need to patch servers and carry out the mundane activities that often hinder IT departments.
Focus Back on Patient Care
Wiora’s teams can now deploy new applications on demand and provide business units with a different level of responsiveness. There’s no doubt that cloud computing is enabling healthcare providers to concentrate on their core business of patient care.
The highly-regulated nature of the healthcare industry is often cited as one of the main reasons why cloud technologies are inappropriate. However, that argument can be turned on its head as the fluidity provided by the cloud makes keeping up with continually changing industry regulations a much easier task.
Changes only need to be made once in the cloud for the entire organization to be affected by them. This reduces the need to conduct site-by-site IT rollouts, saving both time and money for the healthcare provider.
It’s not surprising then that IDC research has shown that more healthcare IT leaders are warming to the cloud and with trailblazing CIOs like Wiora in the industry, cloud adoption will inevitably increase.
It’s only a matter of time before healthcare decision makers realize that workloads can be processed in the cloud, without breaking any HIPAA regulations. The constant demand for healthcare organizations to provide better levels of care — while keeping costs down — makes the cloud one of their biggest potential assets.
Date: December 7, 2015