HIPAA Compliant Colocation

Compromised security can significantly interfere with a healthcare organization's ability to care for patients. Healthcare IT threats, such as computer viruses, hackers, and human error can surface everywhere and threaten mission critical applications and patient data. Healthcare organizations need secure, reliable, and HIPAA compliant colocation solutions.

Healthcare IT Challenges  

Although a healthcare organization’s primary directive involves delivering quality patient care, it must also:  

• Comply with government mandates
• Manage a growing amount of data
• Maintain robust data security
• Provide uninterrupted access to IT resources
• Connect networks of healthcare providers in real-time
• Keep IT costs low  

A Safe and Secure Healthcare IT Environment  

Having to meet IT requirements takes the focus away from a healthcare provider’s core activities. However, a HIPAA compliant colocation provider can help improve performance by:  

• Playing an important role in protecting patient data and ensuring privacy -  A HIPAA compliant colocation provider can offer cost-efficient, quality solutions for medical centers, hospitals, clinics, private practice physicians, and other healthcare related businesses.  

• Providing a foundation for the high-density environments needed to house the increasing amount of data used in healthcare operations -  Creating electronic medical records and storing them for longer periods require a solution that can handle high-density operations.  

• Offering the required network and physical security for regulatory compliance -  Compliant colocation providers tightly regulate who can enter the building, go onto the data center floor, maintain equipment, and view server environments.  

• Creating a more resilient environment than most premise-based data centers -  Healthcare organizations must be able to rebuild IT infrastructures after an unplanned outage. Through redundancy of critical systems, HIPAA compliant colocation eliminates downtime.  

• Offering carrier-neutral Internet connectivity -  Colocation connectivity allows healthcare organizations to connect networks and health information in real-time. The healthcare IT environment will increase in complexity as mergers continue. So, the need for more interconnected data centers will grow.  

• Eliminating capital requirements and lowering operating expenses -  Complying with government reforms creates financial pressure across the healthcare industry. Healthcare organizations must look for better ways to deploy and manage IT operations. Colocation eliminates the huge capital costs involved in building, staffing, and maintaining an in-house data center. Colocation also reduces operating expenses. The cost of energy alone can double for an in-house data center compared to a typical office building.  

Many healthcare organizations struggle with security, reliability, and compliance issues. The right HIPAA compliant colocation solution combines healthcare, technological, industry, and regulatory standards expertise.