Cloud Migration Concerns Persist for Provider Organizations

Healthcare providers are curious about the cloud, but many leaders remain cautious about moving their infrastructure and patient information into such an environment.

Little more than 30 percent of responding hospital CIOs said cloud hosting for existing applications is a top five priority, according to a recent survey conducted by Datica; 60 percent of respondents said cloud hosting is a top 10 priority.

Still, only about 30 percent of respondents have a strategy in place to make such a transition, they said, with roughly 18 percent noting that the cloud hosts more than half of their organization’s current software infrastructure.

Care Organizations Lack Cloud Confidence

Why are organizations hesitant to take on the cloud? More than half of the respondents to the Datica study said they worried about compliance, security and privacy issues. And close to 40 percent of respondents don’t see a clear business value in migrating to the cloud.

“Although cloud hosting for healthcare has become mainstream, the understanding of and confidence in the cloud to meet the exacting standards of the highly regulated industry is still a major concern for healthcare systems,” Travis Good, Datica’s chief privacy officer, wrote in a statement about the survey’s findings.

Similarly, 31 percent of respondents expressed privacy and security reservations about the cloud in a survey published in December by KLAS Research.

Despite concerns, industry cloud spending in healthcare is expected to reach $10.8 billion by the end of 2018, according to projections from IDC — more than double the expected outlay in finance ($4.5 billion) and the public sector ($4.3 billion).

What’s more, industry cloud spending in healthcare is expected to grow more than 26 percent in 2019.