Healthcare IT providers are making rapid progress using or migrating legacy technologies to the cloud, but they often mention cost as a challenge, citing set retrieval fees memory and output fees, according to a new Public Cloud Provider 2022 report from KLAS Arch Collaborative.
Where are vendors on their journey to cloud maturity?
Nearly half of the HIT vendors interviewed for the study said their follow-up products are commercially available in the cloud.
KLAS created a new review of HIT software vendors as customers of public cloud providers for research, asking about their experience and cloud maturity journey, and why they choose their cloud provider.
Of those, about three-quarters have products running in a multi-tenant SaaS environment, the rest run their products in a single-tenant SaaS environment, or offer platform-based technologies that allow vendors to and payers use the cloud provider of their choice.
About a third of the vendors interviewed for the report said they use multiple cloud providers.
“Reasons for this include a desire to accommodate customer/service provider cloud preferences, acquisition of products hosted by a single vendor, and the acquisition of products hosted by a single provider,” the KLAS researchers said. other cloud level and functional vulnerabilities”.
They also learned that vendors who previously had legacy solutions have replaced or refactored their products and are still migrating clients to the cloud.
According to the research, by market segment, telehealth providers that provide the most mature cloud solutions, followed by population health providers, followed by data/analytics providers.
AWS is the leading cloud provider for HIT providers
On the cloud provider side, over 95% say they have considered using AWS, and 80% use it as a primary or secondary platform. While predicting and managing costs can still be a challenge, AWS is the market leader in cost and value, the KLAS researchers say.
“Vendors say AWS actively works with them to reduce costs as much as possible. … Integration with other AWS clients is easy thanks to AWS’s flexibility and simple configuration.”
However, HIT providers say that AWS needs to improve its healthcare expertise, with some respondents indicating that the cloud provider seems to be more focused on technology than healthcare. , the researchers added.
The most common reasons surveyed HIT vendors choose AWS are maturity (33%), technology capability (33%) and prior experience (25%).
The biggest obstacles cited in the study were the support gap (35%) and understanding and managing costs (35%).
“Several vendors expressed excitement about AWS’s recent investments in the healthcare market and expect AWS’s focus to shift more towards healthcare,” the report said. “.
Microsoft Azure gains momentum
KLAS researchers say healthcare technology providers that use Microsoft Azure as their primary cloud provider are twice as likely to use a secondary cloud provider than those who use Microsoft Azure as their primary cloud provider. offered on AWS. However, more than 80% of respondents considered Microsoft Azure and more than half used it as their primary or secondary cloud provider.
They cite established relationships with Microsoft, software packages, and preferential prices as key factors in their choice of cloud platform.
According to the report, Microsoft Azure also leads among cloud providers in terms of easy integration and healthcare expertise.
“Vendors appreciate the broad offering and powerful built-in tools and documentation. Microsoft’s solid expertise is backed by a team of employees with industry experience and deep relationships identity with health systems and make significant investments in health care,” the KLAS researchers said.
The potential for improvement remains – albeit with bundles and volume discounts.
“Some customers report costs that can be difficult to predict and manage,” they added.
The most common reason HIT vendors choose Azure is Microsoft’s familiarity (61%) technology capabilities (22%) and scope of delivery (17%).
The biggest obstacles they cited were support gap (47%) and cost understanding and management (27%).
Complementing with Google Cloud
About half of the HIT vendors KLAS researchers interviewed also looked at the Google Cloud Platform, which one vendor uses as the primary provider.
For most providers, GCP is primarily used as a secondary cloud provider to fill a functional gap or enhance capabilities, but several HIT vendors interviewed shared that they are encouraged by recent Google Cloud healthcare investments.
“Suppliers appreciate GCP’s competitive pricing and careful approach to new customers. Key complaints include insufficient flexibility with non-Google tools, high cost to the environment, and high environmental costs. non-manufacturing and more technical-focused,” the researchers said.
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS.
