EHR's - The Forecast Is Cloudy

Though discussion of EHR benefits is still an open item, that costs can be considerable is universally accepted. For this reason, many physicians and hospitals are going to The Cloud.

Eighty-seven percent of all physician practices agree their billing and collections systems need upgrading, according to a new survey. The majority favor moving to a fully integrated practice management, EHR and medical software product, accessible through the cloud on any browser or device.

The first of eight revenue cycle management studies to be released by Black Book, the "Top Physician Practice Management & Revenue Cycle Management: Ambulatory EHR Vendors," is an analysis of the convergence of the replacement EHR market with the needs of physician practices to upgrade patient billing processes.

According to Black Book Rankings, the RCM software and services industry recently surpassed the $12 billion in the ambulatory physician practice segment 

However, as Andi Mann, VP of Stategic Solutions at CA, puts it, with new technologies come new risks.

The proliferation of cloud connected devices and users accessing data from outside the firewall demands a shift in the way we secure data. Security is no longer about locking down the perimeter – it’s about understanding who is accessing the information and the data they’re allowed to access.

IT needs to implement an identity-centric approach to secure data, but according to a recentPonemon study, only 29% of organizations are confident that they can authenticate users in the cloud. At first glance, that appears to be a shockingly low number, but if you think about it, how do you verify identity?

Usernames and passwords, while still the norm, are not sufficient to prove identity and sure, you can identify a device connected to the network, but can you verify the identity of the person using the device?

In a recent @CloudCommons tweetchat on cloud security, the issue of proving the identity of cloud users kept cropping up:

And then there's the issue of PRISM.

To quote Sgt. Esterhaus from Hill Street Blues, "Let's Be Careful Out There."