Healthcare organizations have been naturally migrating to the cloud, and for good reason. However, recent statistics show that choosing the right provider to effectively meet their unique needs can be challenging.
In the past year, the healthcare industry has seen a spike in the number of healthcare organizations switching their hosting providers. When evaluating why organizations are making the switch, we’ve found there are four primary reasons. The advice they’d give others is to ensure that the hosting provider you select meets these key standards:
1. Support
Healthcare organizations need access to technology experts who can quickly respond to issues when they arise. Fast access to IT support personnel is key in keeping employees productive, your organization profitable, and even your patients satisfied.
A genuine desire to solve your problem, no matter the cause, is important. When choosing a hosting provider, consider how the provider engages with your other vendors. Your provider may need to connect with another vendor, such as your EHR provider, and work through the problem together.
2. Speed
It is imperative that healthcare personnel have immediate access and use of critical health information. Therefore, any provider of healthcare IT hosting must have the technology and infrastructure to achieve the demand for quick access. When done right, a hosted application should perform the same or better than if it were running locally.
There are other financial aspects that are achieved by quick access to your information. Staff spend less time waiting for the system, allowing more patients to be seen.
3. Reliability
Closely-related, and equally important to speed, is the reliability of access to your data. Your hosting provider should be able to offer and perform to a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that details uptime, disaster recovery, support staff availability, and maintenance windows.
The success of your organization, its ability to meet compliance regulations, and the security of your patients demand this high level of reliability you can depend on.
4. Flexibility
The healthcare field is highly-regulated, and experiences rapid technological change in response to a changing landscape. Utilizing a Private Cloud through a hosting provider, allowing your organization to navigate both planned and unplanned changes to adapt to this fast-moving healthcare landscape, is a top priority.
A provider that is flexible will be able to add functionality, host all applications for an organization, heighten security, and expand for growth.
There are a lot of unknowns when switching hosting providers but finding a provider that offers tailored support, speed you need, reliability you can trust, and flexibility to meet changing needs will help make the transition worthwhile. These key standards ensure an organizations’ IT environment runs smoothly and effectively.