Cybersecurity concerns continue to top the list of investment priorities for healthcare leaders. This is clear in both Philips’ Future Health Index 2022 Report and Gartner’s annual CIO survey. It comes as no surprise, as strengthening security has continually been a key IT goal of federal agencies like the HHS (Health and Human Services) across the last decade. Healthcare organizations have executed many strategies in pursuit of this goal—one of which has garnered significant attention and adoption recently: implementing cloud-based desktops.
In fact, experts estimate that by 2024 80% of on-premises virtual desktops will shift to cloud-based—and the cloud-based desktop market will surpass $10 billion by 2023.
What are cloud-based hosted desktops for healthcare?
Cloud-based desktops are a safe, reliable way to enable secure remote work for healthcare providers and administrators anywhere, anytime, from any device. Cloud-based desktops use remote protocol to establish a secure connection and securely route the user to all the applications they need to work through a single sign-on process, whether they are working remotely or in another clinic.
What are the benefits of cloud-based hosted desktops for healthcare?
The primary draw of cloud-based desktops for healthcare organizations is enhanced security. By centralizing applications and data, cloud-based desktops increase data security and keep sensitive information uniformly protected. This is particularly critical for healthcare organizations, as they house massive amounts of patient and population data. The average cost of a security breach for healthcare organizations is $4.24M—a steep price to pay for an avoidable event. Cloud-based desktops decrease the likelihood of a security incident by 60% with enhanced data encryption, the highest security standards, proactive vulnerability detection, efficient patching, and comprehensive access controls.
Cloud-based desktops have several advantages for healthcare organizations beyond enhanced security that can enhance patient care and operational efficiency.
Reduce IT costs
Cloud-based desktops extend the life of your existing hardware, reducing costly device maintenance and replacement expenditures. It also eliminates the need for antivirus software, saving money in the IT budget.
Ensure compliance
According to the American Hospital Associationaverage community hospitals spend upwards of $38 billion each year just on the administrative cost of compliance. Third-party cloud vendors reduce the burden and the cost of upkeeping compliance as they undergo regular audits and insist upon best-practice encryption.
Improve workforce efficiency
Cloud-based desktops are interoperable with EMRs and other critical organizational systems. This is critical for streamlining workflows and helping the workforce do their jobs well—and without unnecessary obstacles.
Augment reliability
Cloud-based desktops backup and protect data reliably and in real-time in a geo diverse cloud. This reliable failover method means that in the unfortunate event of an incident or disaster, organizations avoid costly and inconvenient data loss and outages—easing the stress and work for both administrators and users.
Increase organizational flexibility
One result of the pandemic is increased trust in and familiarity with remote work and the technology that enables it. The ability to seamlessly access multiple systems with single sign-on allows clinicians and healthcare staff to get the information they need to treat patients how and when they need it.
Improve patient care and service
Cloud-based desktops help healthcare organizations provide stronger patient care by empowering care teams with remote clinical collaboration capabilities and HIPPA-compliant patient monitoring and engagement tools.
Scale easily
The cloud environment is highly conducive to managing an evolving workforce. Advanced access controls allow organizations to closely monitor utilization, easily remove access, and seamlessly shift user count as needed.
What is the ROI of cloud-based desktops?
Cloud-based desktops for healthcare organizations are a simple solution that can generate powerful results. At TrueNorth, our clients have seen incredible impact, including:
- 75% lower deployment costs
- 66% reduced total cost of ownership by endpoint
- 70% of organizations improve business continuity
- 64% achieve less downtime and fewer unplanned outages
How do organizations transition to cloud-based virtual desktops?
Once cloud-based systems are in place, healthcare organizations can quickly realize all the promised benefits of centralized management, improved data security, enhanced patient care, and reduced costs. However, adopting a cloud-based desktop will only be successful for organizations that have a clear purpose and develop a strong implementation strategy.
Our team at PSM provides practices with the actual solution (cloud-based hosting) AND the collaborative guidance they need to extract the most benefits from the investment.