Healthcare is one critical area where security and compliance rule the roost and accordingly, many healthcare operations are looking to the clouds in a distracted sense, seeing what is possible, but often turn to their current IT models as they know that they are compliant and security issues are the same as they have been for the last several years with variations on the same threat emerging–not an entirely new possibility for threats that an IT department unfamiliar with clouds might be immediately entrusted with. Microsoft is reaching out to the healthcare sector, showing them that they wlll be able to provide new delivery models and become more IT and cost-efficient but this is a tough sell. Microsoft understands that Obama’s aim to move healthcare into the electronic age via the HITECH Act gives them added muscle but nonetheless, when patient records are sent into the ether, it is guaranteed to raise some hackles both within IT and among the public. To allay concerns, Microsoft is tentatively proposing the private cloud managed through SharePoint, but until wider adoption occurs and security is not the second-hottest buzzword next to cloud itself, this will take a handful of highly publicized use cases to start reshaping thoughts for large healthcare firms.
Microsoft Aims To Alleviate Health IT Cloud Concerns
July 7, 2010