Cybersecurity

Moving healthcare applications to the cloud for scalability and cost savings

Sept. 26, 2017

Carrick Carpenter, Senior Director, Provider Solutions, NTT DATA Services

When it comes to today’s healthcare technology trends, it’s all about the cloud. Eighty-three percent of healthcare IT executives say they’re using cloud services, according to a HIMSS Analytics survey, with almost 70% using software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. It’s easy to see why. Hosting SaaS applications in the cloud often enables scalability and cost savings, among other benefits.

AcuteNet is one organization reaping those benefits. The Ontario-based software solution provider offers a sharing economy model, through which healthcare providers save money by sharing the cost of application infrastructure.

Driving new business and protecting patient data with the NTT DATA Cloud on Demand

Like many other healthcare organizations, AcuteNet realized it needed to change its data center–based strategy, which was not scalable or sustainable. The organization addressed the challenge by working with NTT DATA to implement the NTT DATA Cloud on Demand and Cloud Dedicated solutions to host the AcuteNet SaaS platform. The AcuteNet SaaS application runs the open source Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server on top of NTT DATA Cloud on Demand.

By running its application in the cloud, AcuteNet can easily scale its platform to support 7 million clinical assessments—a number that is growing at 10% each month. The organization now can also support more than 2.3 million patients, compared with 20,000 patients previously. In addition, AcuteNet is taking advantage of the agility of the cloud to onboard new customers faster, and it is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by eliminating the need to put resources into its data center infrastructure.

AcuteNet is also achieving one of its primary goals—protecting private patient data—by running in the cloud. Each AcuteNet customer receives a container that has a copy of the AcuteNet application code with that customer’s encrypted patient data. As a result, the company is ensuring compliance with HIPAA and other healthcare regulations in every state and province it does business in.

Want to learn more? Read the AcuteNet case study to find out why the organization selected NTT DATA. The case study offers an in-depth look at how AcuteNet—and its customers—are benefiting from the cloud.