Infographic: Embracing Cloud in Healthcare

HIMSS Analytics has released the results of their inaugural Cloud Survey on embracing the cloud in healthcare. According to the survey 150 healthcare organizations, 80 percent of respondents are currently using cloud services and almost all have plans to expand their use of cloud services. More results can be found in the press release copied below or visually summarized in the infographic below: Background Results of the inaugural 2014 HIMSS Analytics Cloud Survey show the widespread adoption of cloud services among healthcare organizations across the U.S., with 80 percent of the 150 respondents reporting they currently use cloud services. The top three reasons for adopting cloud services include lower maintenance costs, speed of deployment and lack of internal staffing resources. The survey shows a positive growth outlook for cloud services as almost all healthcare organizations currently using cloud services plan to expand their use of these tools.  Half of the cloud adopters are hosting clinical applications in the cloud, primarily using Software as a Service (SaaS). Other typical cloud services include Health Information Exchange (HIE), hosting human resources (HR) applications and data as well as backup and disaster recovery.  Healthcare organizations take into consideration a number of factors when selecting a cloud services provider.  The top concerns for healthcare organizations seeking cloud services are the cloud services provider’s willingness to enter into a business associate agreement (BAA) as well as physical and technical security.  Even after a cloud services provider has been selected and the cloud services have been adopted by the healthcare organization, there are still challenges.  Two-thirds of healthcare organizations have challenges, including a lack of visibility into ongoing operations, customer service, as well as costs and fees. Half of the respondents also identified performance issues, such as slow responsiveness of hosted applications as a problem, but were willing to work with their existing cloud service provider to resolve their issues, rather than switch to a new one.   Interestingly, a small fraction of respondents expressed a resistance to adopting cloud services (six percent). Of these respondents, nearly half cited security concerns as the primary barrier to their willingness to adopt cloud services. To learn more about the findings for the survey, which examines the responses of 150 healthcare organizations – including medical practices, hospitals, and healthcare systems – visit the HIMSS Analytics website.