The HIPAA and HITECH
compliancy regulations are increasingly having an effect on cloud and
hosted services. As cloud computing catches on in all vertical markets,
health care professionals are seeing the advantages of having their data
and apps in the cloud, but if the average business has concerns over
security, those concerns are multiplied tenfold in the health care
sector. With that in mind, 8x8 is now supporting HIPAA and HITECH in its Virtual Office VoIP phone service.
With the scrutiny health care
providers are put under when it comes to securing patient and customer
data, it only makes sense for such organizations to look to providers
that aim to work to provide regulation-compliant cloud solutions. 8x8 is
just one vendor working to help its vertical customers comply with
strict privacy legislations, and the company has been building out its
cloud communications services to comply with FISMA, PCI-DSS and CPNI
requirements.
"Security is one of the chief concerns IT professionals have
when considering migrating to cloud-based services," said Mike McAlpen,
senior director of security
and compliance at 8x8, in a prepared statement. Although there isn't
quite as much skepticism about cloud security today than there was three
years ago (seems like a lifetime ago, no?), security continues to rank
high on lists of concerns IT and business decision-makers have when it
comes to the cloud.
For cloud services providers
like 8x8 that target specific verticals like health care, it's critical
to demonstrate the ability to make data and apps safe from the
nogoodniks on the electron highway. With that expertise, it's a
differentiator that could mean winning business, but without it, it's a
potential setback.
MDS Medical,
a Greenway PrimeSUITE electronic health record partner and a Virtual
Office customer, confirmed the importance of security in cloud
offerings.
"It is important to our business that 8x8 places security of
customer data and adherence to national security standards as one of the
most important attributes of its service," said William Schroeder, MDS
Medical president and CEO, in a prepared statement.
