Netgain

For almost 50 years, Multicare Associates has provided a wide array of primary care services.

An internal IT staff managed Multicare Associates’ IT environment for 30 providers and 200 staff across three locations. The in-house IT staff supported the primary care clinic’s users, applications, and their infrastructure. But CEO Matt Brandt had concerns about the practice’s aging IT environment and wanted to implement a new EHR solution.

For anyone who has attended the annual HIMSS conference, you know it can be overwhelming. 2017’s HIMSS Annual Conference was no different, with over 40,000 health IT professionals and 1,200+ exhibitors sprawled across what seemed like miles of exhibit hall space at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. It was abundantly clear that this year, the healthcare industry is hungry for technology solutions to drive efficiency and improve patient experiences.

Much of the buzz at the event was centered on a handful of core topics, so we wanted to share some of those key takeaways here for those of you who weren’t able to make it out to Orlando this year.

A typical physician practice may use Microsoft as their cloud provider for Office 365, use their EHR software provider for their EHR, use a private cloud provider for their practice management and their PACS storage on-site. These solutions all have separate logins, support contacts and service level agreements.

Over 80 percent of healthcare providers are using some form of cloud services within their practice, according to HIMSS Analytics’ 2016 Cloud Survey. Patient engagement and empowerment tools are the most common tools in the cloud (35%), followed by health information exchange (34%), back office solutions (18%) and business continuity and disaster recovery functions (13%).

Cloud computing has become the new normal in healthcare IT management. It is no longer an “if” but a “when” for growing healthcare practices. The question now has become “what type of cloud is right for my practice?” The unique needs of each practice require cloud solutions that are crafted to fit the environment, rather than the environment crafted to fit the cloud.

The variations of cloud offerings are plenty, but four service-types dominate the marketplace and alleviate a myriad of practice pains.

Cloud computing is a concept with which healthcare organizations are increasingly aware. However, with constant changes and proliferation of cloud-based software models, it can be difficult to understand the variations available. In Which Cloud is Right for Your Organization: Private vs. Public Cloud, we discussed private and public clouds. While these two are the more common clouds, there are other cloud computing options becoming more prevalent among healthcare providers because of their increased flexibility.

Barriers to use of cloud-based software have become less pronounced with accelerated adoption among healthcare organizations. In a recent IDC Health Insights survey, nearly 42 percent of respondents said they were more comfortable with cloud computing in 2015 than they were the previous year. However, substantial risks remain, and a “first-generation” approach to cloud computing can still result in serious difficulties (and resulting provider/user rejection) if those risks are not mitigated.

Healthcare practices throughout the country are moving part or all of their IT infrastructure to one of several models of “the cloud.” The cloud computing model has proven to be an effective method for both large and small practices. Still, there is some uncertainty about when the right time is to utilize cloud computing and what problems it solves.

In Part I of The Benefits of Moving to the Cloud, we discussed how cost effective, scalable, and secure it is to implement a cloud solution for your healthcare Information Technology (IT) needs. While these are great benefits, there are even more reasons a cloud IT solution is ideal for small hospitals and offices with multiple physicians who are short on IT staff, but high on demand for quality healthcare services.

There is no question that technological advances are being made at ever-increasing speeds.  If you’re in the business of providing health services that fact may make you a little uneasy.  It’s one thing to provide quality care and healing, quite another to have to manage Information Technology (IT) systems that seem to change overnight while still providing excellent patient care.

There is one task that must be completed not later than December 31st, 2014 in order to be successful for the 2015 Meaningful Use reporting period.  For everyone who is attesting for their second year of Meaningful Use and beyond, next year is currently scheduled to be a full year.