Multitudes of connected medical devices that gather data and analyze it in a myriad of ways, are available now.
This is the age of big data, which means all kinds of organizations including healthcare providers must make provisions for scalable and flexible IT infrastructures.
While data analytics may offer various incentives to health care providers, they also raise new issues. Clinical data storage must be HIPAA-compliant. It should also be easily accessible to authorized users, or it will be of no use!
That’s why so many healthcare institutions are turning to cloud data storage options.
Low cost, flexibility, and high customization options are just the tip of the cloud. More specifically, they are interested in what Enterprise Dedicated Hosting has to offer!
Here are just 4 reasons why enterprise cloud dedicated hosting is rapidly gaining importance for the healthcare industry:
1. Compliance
Cloud hosting may be an umbrella term, but not all hosting is created equal!
Dedicated hosting is essential for healthcare facilities which want to remain compliant with the standards set by HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
If they are to continue serving the consumers, such institutions will need to be very careful about the stringency around infrastructure oversights and patient data protection.
That means they cannot depend on garden-variety web hosting to supply them with the kind of security they need for healthcare records.
They will need HIPAA compliant web hosting or HIPAA hosting. Only dedicated servers can meet the regulatory standards of HIPAA and still provide the level of service consumers expect from them.
Security breaches and leakage of private patient information aren’t unheard of.
Even in this day, at least 128,000 patients had to go through difficult times when a clinic in Arkansas leaked their unencrypted records.
Then there was the exposure of the records of 106,000 patients and 300,000 patients in Michigan and Pennsylvania, respectively.
2. Demand
This year’s healthcare computing trends give us several indications about the demand for healthcare and ways of seamlessly fulfilling them.
Firstly, due to the fluctuating nature of the healthcare market, IT use will be decisive in the success of healthcare facilities.The latter will also become the principal reason leading to the facilities opting for cloud computing.
Secondly, healthcare demand will only keep on increasing. The rapidly growing population and a large number of senior demographics will make sure of that. In fact, currently, it is estimated that the demand for healthcare resources will see a boost of 11-17% just between 2014 and 2025.
Additionally, the rate of growing supply of primary care physicians will become insufficient to meet that demand by 2020.
3. Congestion
Dedicated servers don’t present the same degree of congestion than most shared hosting options would.
During hours that see high traffic, healthcare provider websites on shared servers might get bogged down or crash. At times, usage of certain applications can also hog the bandwidth on the same server, leaving none for the healthcare website users.
Then there are matters of CPU usage and disk space that could lead to congestion, as well.
Yet another reason for the disruption of certain websites could be its resource-heavy nature. In such situations, dedicated hosting may well be the only answer that will ensure that the healthcare provider website stays up.
4. Support
A healthcare system would need its dedicated server to host sensitive information that can be required at any moment. Access to that information at the right time could be critical in saving lives and providing timely treatments.
Many dedicated hosting services offer support to their customers. By ensuring minimal downtime and resolving issues quickly, such support can prove itself indispensable.
Hosting providers that provide support 24 hours per day on a daily basis are available.
All healthcare institutions need to get the support they can rely on is a good service level agreement (SLA). Even if said support is unavailable at an important juncture, servers with knowledge bases may also be useful.
Final Words
Healthcare facilities face various challenges, not least because they are vastly different from each other.
They vary on local or international levels, and for reasons like service requirements, government policies, social values, and financial regulations.
Thus, it is crucial to understand that no single standardized IT solution can be used for all healthcare organizations.
To fully step into the digital age, they need the versatility and scalability that only cloud companies can offer to them!
ABOUT Alycia Gordan
Alycia Gordan is a freelance writer who loves to read and write articles on healthcare technology, fitness and lifestyle. She is a tech junkie and divides her time between travel and writing. You can find her on Twitter: @meetalycia