What Healthcare Organizations Need To Know About Cloud Lifecycle Management
Healthcare organizations have made great strides in cloud adoption over the past five to seven years. Before that, trepidation was much more prevalent among healthcare IT leaders. It was difficult for some to imagine what it would look like to go from a data center, colocation facility or on-premises hosting of protected health information (PHI) to having sensitive data and applications live in the cloud.
Today, there are plenty of success stories of healthcare organizations migrating to the cloud, and other health systems can easily see what’s possible when it comes to hosting in the cloud. There are also success stories about data protection in the cloud — even at scale. Cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services have given healthcare organizations confidence in their ability to host in the cloud. AWS also provides a wide variety of services with the compliance and security features health systems need built in.
All of this has reduced concerns around cloud migration and increased overall confidence in cloud infrastructure. For healthcare organizations now ready to begin their cloud journeys, it’s important that they understand what’s involved in not only the initial migration but the entire lifecycle of cloud management. Having this knowledge will better ensure cloud success and cost optimization.
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When it comes to cloud lifecycle management, many healthcare organizations struggle with buy-in — from executives, patients, clinicians, the public and the board. Security remains the top concern, particularly around PHI, clinical records and other sensitive healthcare data.
Another big challenge health systems face is deciding what type of cloud architecture is best for their business needs. Healthcare IT teams must decide how to structure their data and applications within the architecture, which cloud services the organization needs, what lifecycle policies should be in place, how to secure assets in the cloud, and how to ensure that the organization is being financially responsible. It’s challenging to manage all of these factors on an ongoing basis.
Finally, any infrastructure architecture must comply with HIPAA regulations, which is a major area of concern for healthcare organizations throughout the entirety of the cloud lifecycle.
LEARN MORE: How do cloud lifecycle services optimize cloud operations?
Where To Start With Cloud Lifecycle ManagementCloud lifecycle management starts with a detailed planning process. Where is the organization starting and where does it want to end up in the cloud? Stakeholder teams must determine what they want hosted in the cloud and the type of architecture strategy that makes the most sense for their business.
Once those questions have been answered, the organization can begin migrating and building out in the cloud before operationalizing, securing and factoring. Financial responsibility in the cloud is also critical, meaning that the organization should adopt a FinOps mentality once the organization’s cloud state is steady. The IT team needs to continuously observe the cloud and optimize workloads from a compute, data and financial perspective. Decommissioning applications or workflows is the final stage in the cloud lifecycle and should be considered as opportunities for modernization become available. If the organization does need to decommission something, does that mean the application or workflow would be decommissioned completely or just while it’s being modernized?
It’s important to remember that an organization may need to change its architecture halfway or even two-thirds of the way through the migration, which could mean anything from sunsetting outdated systems to adopting new services or modernizing workflows. The cloud is flexible, and health systems can change their cloud architecture whenever they need. This is a major upside to cloud-hosted infrastructure as compared with more traditional solutions that require long-term commitments, licensing and even the management of physical locations to support hardware.
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Healthcare organizations don’t have to navigate cloud lifecycle management alone. A technology partner such as Mission Cloud Services, a CDW Company, can help guide health systems on every step of their journey.
Mission has extensive experience in cloud migration and management and has helped numerous healthcare and life sciences organizations successfully overcome common challenges. We understand how to design cloud infrastructures that are both compliant and secure, and we’ve built, migrated and managed cloud environments from the ground up, ensuring that organizations are financially efficient in the cloud.
We meet organizations wherever they are in their cloud journey, whether they’re just getting started or already operating at scale. Our services are designed to support every stage and size, helping determine their current position in the cloud lifecycle and what they need to move forward.
As an AWS Premier Tier Partner, Mission also has the expertise to guide healthcare organizations through AWS’ artificial intelligence and machine learning tools and services. We can also show organizations how secure these tools are by leveraging our experience and customer success stories. We start small, then ramp up once stakeholders are comfortable with the level of functionality and efficiency these cutting-edge services provide.
The sky is the limit in terms of what’s possible in the cloud. Healthcare organizations can feel increasingly confident in their decision to migrate. The cloud offers a secure, efficient and cost-effective foundation, and also enables access to modern technologies such as AI. Ultimately, health systems won’t be able to fully leverage AI and machine learning tools without a strong cloud infrastructure.
This article is part of HealthTech’s MonITor blog series.
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