– Cloud adoption in healthcare is accelerating amid deployment challenges, according to the results of a recent survey conducted by HIMSS Media in collaboration in Perficient and Red Hat.
– The blinded HIMSS Technology Outlook Survey: The Outlook for Cloud finds healthcare organizations are already deploying or planning to deploy a significant share of their healthcare information technology (HIT) workload to the cloud.
Cloud adoption continues to accelerate in healthcare, a fact reflected in the fact that eight of ten healthcare stakeholders consider cloud a strategic priority for the coming year, according to the results of a survey conducted by HIMSS Media, a HIMSS Innovation Company, in collaboration with Perficient and Red Hat. The survey explored cloud trends in the healthcare industry and identified common issues organizations face prior to implementing cloud technologies.
Survey Background/Methodology
The research was conducted in June 2019 to explore how healthcare organizations are prioritizing key areas of investment for the coming year, where interest is accelerating, and perceptions of current solutions, vendor activity. This report summarizes the findings for the cloud category. A total of 204 qualified respondents employed at U.S. hospitals and health systems, health information exchanges, pharmaceutical/life sciences organizations and payers/health insurers completed the survey. Respondents were offered an incentive for completing the survey (opportunity to win one of five $100 Amazon gift cards).
Average % of HIT Workload Deployed in Cloud
The blinded HIMSS Technology Outlook Survey: The Outlook for Cloud finds healthcare organizations are already deploying or planning to deploy a significant share of their healthcare information technology (HIT) workload to cloud. Specifically, the study finds that:
– An estimated 39 percent of HIT workloads are currently deployed in the cloud today;
– An estimated 50 percent of HIT workloads are expected to be deployed in the cloud 12 months from now; and
– An estimated 79 percent are making cloud a strategic priority in the coming year.
Despite this accelerated adoption rate, the study finds that only 58 percent of stakeholders are confident they are aligning their spending priorities and technology roadmap to adequately meet their cloud needs.
“There remains some confusion on how to best apply cloud technologies,” said Joel Thimsen, principal of cloud consulting, Perficient. “Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies, vendor variation, and different strategies for implementation and preparation contribute to the complexity of adopting cloud platforms. Considering this, it can be hard for organizations to understand where to start to gain true transformative change for digital health and data analytics initiatives.”
Other Key Findings
– Even as confusion exists on how to implement cloud technologies, the research finds that stakeholders view the cloud as a key component to accomplishing strategic initiatives that enable business transformation.
– The majority of healthcare stakeholders feel vendors are aligning their cloud solutions well with market needs and 9 out of 10 cite evidence of technology innovation in the market. In fact, cloud is just one of 3 out of the 10 technologies measured where more than half of those surveyed report “solid progress and evidence of new thinking” from vendors.
– Within their own organizations, stakeholders are moderately confident they are aligning their technology roadmap and spending priorities appropriately to meet their cloud needs, and nearly 3/4 are accelerating activity around cloud with 46% engaging in buying activity.
– Healthcare stakeholders are somewhat conservative in their approach to new cloud vendors with the majority looking for peer recommendations or established market viability before evaluating new or emerging cloud technology vendors. Mid- to small-sized organizations are most likely to indicate a willingness to consider new cloud vendors.
As a trusted partner that understands the potential of cloud capabilities within the healthcare industry, Perficient helps organizations match specific cloud offerings with their own business and clinical needs. The company maintains a formal cloud migration and DevOps methodology based on the successful delivery of multiple large-scale cloud applications.
-A large healthcare payer facing changes in healthcare reform and shifting customer expectations partnered with Perficient to develop a modern application development platform. Perficient, a Red Hat Premier Partner, used Red Hat OpenShift to deploy an end-to-end continuous delivery pipeline and a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution that improved the velocity of application delivery. The solution decreased developer onboarding time, increased the speed-to-market of application development, and reshaped the organization’s outlook on how to leverage cloud technology for future growth.
