One of the biggest concerns for those in the healthcare field when it comes to the cloud is: is it secure enough? HIPAA compliance is a huge area of concern for any medical practice. (If you need help there, check out this HIPAA violations checklist that we created) While we’ve already outlined our thoughts on whether the cloud is secure enough for the healthcare industry, for some that might not be enough. Office managers, physicians and board members might need the reassurance that another, reputable medical office has completed a migration successfully. One of our clients, Associates in Dermatology, underwent a migration of their Electronic Health Records (EHR) to the cloud. Let’s break down some of the reasons why we chose the solution and what the switch did for them.
Their previous setup.
Associates in Dermatology was running AllScripts EMR on aged servers. There was delayed access to information, those outside and inside the office had to remote in to the server, and all patient data was stored onsite. While the existing solution was functioning for them, it was clear that both patients and employees would benefit from a faster system. The practice was faced with an estimated cost of $80,000 to replace the internal servers.
The recommended solution.
AllScripts now offers a hosted solution that allows medical practices to pay a monthly fee rather than having to invest thousands of dollars to host the application themselves. This allows employees access via remote desktop to their patient data on AllScript’s secure servers. This would break down the application cost into a predictable monthly expense and give the practice access to all the application updates and features without having to continually update to the latest version.
After the switch.
The predictable cost and nearly 100% uptime guarantee was an easy sell for Associates in Dermatology. They saw relief in getting sensitive patient data off their local servers and into the hands of a capable cloud services provider who could invest more heavily into security and backups. The application is accessed through Remote Desktop, and is as simple as clicking a button on the desktop and entering security credentials. Users are now more efficient, patients aren’t waiting as long and it’s a win-win situation across the board.
A cloud move isn’t a simple or easy choice, but when a business’ servers are aging, unreliable or not sufficiently backed up, it’s a gaping hole of risk and presents compliance issues. If you’re still having trouble wrapping your head around cloud security – consider the potential compliance fees and risk you assume by doing nothing. Here’s a great quote, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.”
It’s probably time for the cloud.