One pressing concern that keeps IT directors for healthcare up at night is regulatory compliance, or their organization’s ability to adhere to specific laws, regulations, and guidelines. After all, the healthcare sector faces challenges related to data confidentiality, making compliance key. This focus on being compliant means that partners must be prepared to address this concern when selling cloud solutions to customers within this particular vertical market, where compliance means everything.
As such, we turned to our Cisco Powered friends at Peak 10, experts in healthcare-ready cloud infrastructure, to provide some knowledge as to how best prepare to sell cloud to this unique market. Here are a few takeaways from our conversation:
HIPAA compliance is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to implementing a truly compliant cloud solution. In other words, being well-versed in all compliance policies—in addition to notable ones such as HIPAA—will ultimately make or break your customers’ decision to use a particular cloud infrastructure. So, be wise when deciding who to partner with, as all vendors are different. For example, Peak 10, ensures its partners can provide their customers with top-shelf infrastructure that will remain compliant with HIPAA and beyond. The cloud provider obtained a business associate agreement (BAA) in HIPAA meaning that it can put its money where its mouth is when it comes time to audit.
Healthcare professionals want tight control over their data and applications such as EMR and healthcare information exchanges, which contain sensitive patient information. As such, IT directors within this vertical who are looking to migrate seamlessly yet securely from physical infrastructure to the cloud must work with a vendor that can afford them accessibility to mission-critical data and applications when stored in collocated data center facilities. Peak 10 guarantees its customers can access and manage their various data and applications by ensuring security and compliance through its common firewall, policies and VPN configuration, which run consistently across all of its data center locations.
Consistent auditing is essential as government regulatory policies are stringent and subject to change and the consequences of being incompliant with such regulations are damaging. For instance, unplanned downtime, fines, and penalties (not to mention the costs associated with each) are all important to consider when choosing a cloud solution in the healthcare market. Peak 10 is audited by third-party experts on a recurring basis to ensure its policies are up to par at all times. For IT directors in healthcare, remaining compliant 100 percent of the time is not an “if” but a must. Vendors like Peak 10 run their cloud services in an extremely controlled environment so that all infrastructures are completely secure and compliant. What’s more, Peak 10 employs dedicated compliance officers that are responsible for continuous auditing and supporting customers’ individualized needs step by step, 24×7.
Partners: you have the ability to end your healthcare customers’ nightmares about regulatory compliance. With a vendor like Peak 10 at your side, you can ensure your customers are in good hands.
Ready to get your Healthcare IT checkup? Talk to an AVANT Channel Manager today about solutions for the Healthcare market, including Peak 10.