Healthcare Data Security Remains a Concern, Opportunity
One of the more promising vertical markets for cloud adoption is healthcare. With the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations being updated to incorporate the modern information technology landscape, the demand for managed service providers (MSPs) to help secure the industry’s data storage and cloud-based file sharing will continue to grow.
A recent story from FierceGovernmentIT cited Joe Klosky, senior technical advisor at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who suggested that managing health data moving from system to system is “critical.” FierceGovernmentIT also reported the complex mission government officials are experiencing as “the rapid growth of health data is helping federal agencies better chart the quality of care being provided and other nationwide trends, but it’s also presenting some privacy and security challenges.”
These privacy and security challenges are largely a result of an industry with no significant familiarity of how to manage the cloud. Klosky’s FDA has been conscious of security for some time now, but he believes that “true security is only as strong as the security of all parties that use or provide the information.” For many organizations, especially those adopting cloud services for the first time, it’s up to MSPs to manage that security strength.
Klosky also references the importance of data encryption for technical, operational, or management security controls in health data. For many industries, data encryption is an important component of the managed services package that you can offer to an organization. For the health sector, it’s regulated by a stringent set of both industry guidelines and state and federal legislation.
“Because of the private nature of our data, we’re very sensitive to both privacy and security,” says Janet Vogel, director of the office of technology solutions at The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). “Making it easy to have data protected at rest and in transit and in use is a really important feature that we’re looking for.”
That’s where you come in. There’s no reason for the CMS or other health organizations to look any further. Relaxed government security restrictions will only further serve to develop the opportunity for MSPs to help make an introduction to cloud storage and file sharing for government-based health institutions.
Klosky has described the situation as a “paradigm shift,” as cloud computing technology has shaped the data security emphasis we see today, and Vogel has said, “With new technologies coming, it’s a constant challenge and we have to dedicate our resources to really focus on that.”
While restrictions on the adoption of cloud services are relaxing, the regulations on how company’s secure their data is only getting more stringent. This presents a great opportunity for MSPs. As more companies look towards cloud solutions, be sure to stay up on current technologies, advancement in cloud security, and the regulations that your clients have to deal with. If you can position yourself as an expert in the security concerns and regulations that plague them, you’ll be their top choice.
