From: Med City News
The HIPAA Omnibus Rule regulations encourage business associates to healthcare companies to share responsibility for data breaches. These new regulations involve signing “Business Associate Agreements” with providers, yet are likely to strengthen trust in cloud security, and allow more healthcare entities to enjoy the benefits of the cloud while ensuring that patient privacy is maintained.
In the recent past, organizations were hesitant to move sensitive healthcare information to the cloud. The cloud was unfamiliar and seemed to be less safe than crunching data on company hardware. But now that cloud service providers are taking on a big slice of responsibility for their clients’ data security, cloud computing is much more attractive. Not only is it perceived to be safer, but it transfers some of the responsibility for security from the healthcare company to the cloud provider, making it a safer choice than going it alone.
In fact, a recent study (conducted in Aug 2013 by Imprivita) shows that the use of cloud-based applications and services in healthcare is up significantly from last year. A full 30 percent of respondents said they currently use cloud computing. In 2012, the number was only nine percent. And 40 percent of those respondents said they have moved their Private Health Information (PHI) into the cloud (also up from nine percent last year).
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