Healthcare Organizations’ IT Strategy to Include Hybrid, Multicloud
More than half of healthcare organizations expect their IT strategy to include multicloud and hybrid cloud going forward, according to a report by 451 Research on behalf of Virtustream.
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- More than half of healthcare organizations expect their IT strategy to include multicloud and hybrid cloud going forward, according to a report by 451 Research on behalf of Virtustream.
Multicloud is the use of multiple cloud computing and storage services in a single heterogeneous architecture. Multicloud differs from hybrid cloud, which is the combination of public, private, and/or legacy cloud architecture.
The 451 Research report found that healthcare organizations expect a significant shift to off-premises cloud environments to begin soon. They believe public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and hosted private cloud will go from being the primary venues for a combined 6 percent of workloads today to 20 percent in two years.
“This shift toward off-premises environments will include an increased reliance on SaaS [software as a service] and non-cloud-hosted infrastructure, and a growing use of on-premises private cloud as a primary environment for workload execution,” noted the report.
While many healthcare organizations have expressed a strong intent to use cloud platforms, only 12 percent have reached broad production implementation of public cloud.
“Healthcare firms have included cloud platforms in their IT portfolios, demonstrating their intent to rely more heavily on these platforms at some point. However, they have stopped short of broad implementation, showing more caution than business in other categories when it comes to trusting cloud platforms,” the report observed.
Regulation is a limiting factor for healthcare organization in using public cloud. Close to half said that compliance requirements are a reason for considering a workload unsuitable to run in public cloud.
Other inhibitors to healthcare cloud investment include concern over security (38 percent), cost and pricing (35 percent), control over data sovereignty and locality (35 percent), and process integration and governance (25 percent).
“While cloud platforms offer the potential for cost savings, they are not inherently cheaper than executing on-premises, and cost-effective use of cloud is a complex design and operational challenge,” the report noted.
Healthcare organizations outpaced firms in other industries in their expectation of working with cloud service providers to access cloud platform expertise (49 percent), architectural capabilities (46 percent), and security expertise (46 percent).
“Healthcare firms have demonstrated their intent to shift significantly toward cloud environments as primary venues for operating IT systems over the next several years. Success will be determined by the extent to which they are able to address the specific needs of their businesses while adhering to the strict privacy and security requirements imposed on the industry,” the report concluded.
Healthcare Cloud Computing Market to Reach $40B by 2026
According to a new market report by Acumen Research and Consulting, the healthcare cloud computing market is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent, reaching $40 billion by 2016.
The report observed that healthcare organizations have a strong interest in patient data privacy and safety, and the pressure to manage growing healthcare data has driven economic solutions such as cloud computing. Health companies are gradually accepting cloud computing as an effective data storage solution. The technology offers various advantages, such as business agility, privacy and security, and lower costs.
The global healthcare cloud computing market is expected to expand substantially as a result of the following factors: favorable regulation, increased healthcare investments, widespread use of high-speed internet, increased public awareness, increased demand for regulatory adherence, and new models of payments and patient-care implementation.
The market, however, faces major challenges such as high initial investment and the lack of qualified staff. The adoption by healthcare providers of cloud computing is expected to increase considerably, the report predicted.
The transfer of patient data to a third party, such as a cloud provider, generates patients' scepticism and anxiety. Inefficient disaster protection is also a key constraint that curbs the healthcare industry's use of cloud computing.
