SoftwareOne, a leading global provider of software and cloud solutions, conducted a survey in the Netherlands on healthcare institutions and their cloud adoption, compliance with standard NTA 7516 and security. Respondents from almost 30 large healthcare institutions were also asked about their use of innovative applications in healthcare. This showed that the will to comply with laws and regulations is great, but the practice is still stubborn.

In healthcare, the move to cloud environments has increased in recent years. According to respondents, the main strategic considerations for choosing the cloud are the need for manageability, improved security capabilities and the desire to innovate. About 44% of the healthcare applications used are in the cloud, with both public and private clouds being used for this purpose. Remarkably, 35% of those surveyed do not know exactly where the stored data is located; 4% said they had no idea at all.

Sharing information such as medical data via mal or chat is only allowed if employees can communicate in a secure way. This data protection standard, the NTA 7516, was introduced a few years ago to protect any kind of healthcare data in the Netherlands. To comply with it and prevent data breaches, most healthcare organisations use an advanced mail security solution (79%), but respondents indicated that Mobile Device Management (69%) and Endpoint Detection & Response (52%) are also deployed.

Security is taken seriously by healthcare organisations; 'cybersecurity is a top priority within our organisation' says 73% of those surveyed. This group also feels that 'the level of knowledge regarding cybersecurity of their employees in the IT department is of high quality'. This does not apply to all healthcare employees, 85% believe that non-IT employees have little knowledge of security in-house, 92% then realistically say 'it is not a question of whether we will ever be hacked, but when'. That a hack can lead to considerable problems is shown by the fact that although all healthcare institutions have a data backup system, only half indicate that the disaster recovery procedure is tested regularly. Also, only 50% of healthcare institutions have a remediation plan for critical applications within the organisation.

The use of innovative applications that can improve care and reduce workload is becoming increasingly urgent due to the shortage of healthcare staff. Consequently, healthcare organisations feel that employees spend too much time on administrative work (83%). Another stumbling block is that only 13% of employees have access to relevant data insights. About two-thirds of healthcare organisations have therefore invested in tools that help with reporting and insight, with PowerBI also mentioned frequently. 38% deals with Artificial Intelligence, but typical healthcare innovations such as smart patches are also used by 28%. Many healthcare organisations would like to be more innovative, but do not get around to it because they are too busy with day-to-day operations (59%), or do not have enough budget (31%).

Romain Paris, Teamlead Healthcare & Education at SoftwareOne, says: "Service continuity and personal data protection are key concerns in the healthcare sector. To manage this, organisations need to comply with laws and regulations, and invest in innovations. It is of course worrying that some of those in charge do not know exactly where what data is stored. But much worse is that almost all respondents recognise that a hack is highly likely, and only half have data recovery procedures in place. Many steps still need to be taken to make healthcare IT environments fit the needs of employees, and adequately protect against the latest cyber threats."

* The survey was conducted at around 30 major healthcare organisations in collaboration with market research firm The Blue Hour.

Source: SoftwareOne