By Michael Brown 1

We’ve talked in the past about differentiating your MSP business and specializing on a specific industry. Luckily for MSPs working with cloud-based file sharing, the healthcare industry is getting increasingly more valuable. It’s expected that by 2020, 80 percent of healthcare data will “pass through the cloud at some point in its lifetime”. Even though last year the US healthcare cloud market was only at $903.1 million, it’s expected to reach $3.54 billion by 2020!

For MSPs, now is the time to either get into this market, or develop the relationships you already have to further secure your position. While the industry’s cloud usage is on the rise is the time to gain experience addressing their specific needs, concerns, and levels of service.

Here are a few of the reasons healthcare organizations have for looking to cloud-based file sharing:

Strategic Focus

Companies are looking to the cloud for its speed, agility and increased collaboration between its departments. IMS Health, a provider of healthcare information and technology solutions, uses the cloud to monitor and adjust their pharmaceutical sales and marketing initiatives. When sales of a medication go up in a particular area and people start sharing testimonials on social media, the sales and marketing teams can benefit from getting that information quickly.

MSPs working with healthcare organizations should focus on the specific needs or areas that the cloud can improve. Increase their ability to operate on the functions they see as most important.

Moving Cloud Services Outside IT

As healthcare organizations move more functions and file sharing to the cloud, it will require more management. Many organizations either won’t have the staff necessary or won’t want to tie up their existing staff with cloud management tasks.

“We don’t have DBA skills in house to manage enterprise systems and data effectively, and we don’t want to go out and find people with those skills,” says Hologic CIO Dave Rudzinsky.

Hologic, a developer, manufacturer and supplier of advanced diagnostic products, medical imaging systems and surgical products, recently turned to an MSP to handle their increased reliance on managed and hosted services. Now, their IT team is able to focus on growing and improving the business, rather than the 24/7 management of the cloud.

“As a result of the initiative, our team is more strategically focused and able to address business issues that make a real difference to the company.”

Compliance and Control

Even though increased speed and collaboration and freeing up IT teams are major concerns, healthcare organizations will be wary to make a move if it reduced their control over their information or makes compliance more difficult. If they feel adding cloud sharing to their infrastructure will cost more, cost more to maintain, be less reliable, or be harder to maintain control, they will need to address these concerns.

Jay Yellott, vice president of IT at the not-for-profit Baylor, Scott & White Health said, “Our compliance folks, the people who are responsible for keeping our hospital out of the paper,” were worried. ”We were the first cloud contract in our organization. But we weren’t the last.”

Compliance will have concerns about moving to cloud-based file sharing – if they are new to it – but ultimately as their MSP you should be able to address these concerns and highlight the benefits.

Cloud sharing in healthcare is beginning to boom past merely innovative organizations, and become the norm for the industry as a whole. 2020 is only five years away! If you begin to position your MSP company now – you can become the go to choice for organizations looking to expand into the cloud.