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Using cloud computing in the health information technology sector makes sense from a cost basis, but it could take years for health-care providers and patients to develop solid confidence in the security of patient data in cloud environments.
| View keynote speaker Kenneth Mandl's PowerPoint slide presentation |
That was the theme of a panel discussion today at the Mass High Tech Emerging Technology Forum: Health IT and the Cloud at Harvard Medical School in Boston. But before the panel got rolling, the keynote speaker, Kenneth Mandl from Children’s Hospital Boston, talked about the SMArt program that he is involved with, which has a goal of making health-care IT software applications as easy to make and as interoperable as iPhone apps.
SMArt, which stands for Substitutable Medical Applications, reusable technologies, is a platform that will contain open APIs that would allow any application to connect with information in any health-care IT system, regardless of what legacy enterprise system it was based on, Mandl said. That level of integration is necessary when it comes to sharing patient data, he said, noting that “If you’re not familiar with the health system you may not know that your doctor does not know what meds you’re on.”
While acknowledging concerns about data security in cloud computing, several panelists also noted that some of the same security issues are present in in-house systems and even paper and sneakernet-based environments.
Patrick R. Boyle, director of public service solutions for IBM Corp., said one area where a strong case can be made for cloud computing today is on the research side of health care, “If you are able to tap into unused PC cycles around the world, now you are talking about a completely different level of capability,” said Boyle.
Cloud computing already does make sense for some health-care applications, according to Joseph C. Kvedar, director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare. Kvedar said that using external services helps his organization to feed information to remote patients, enabling them to “take ownership of the care.” He said that one cloud-based solution that his center is using delivers video to the desktop. “It’s becoming hard to distinguish what is a locally-based application or storage, and what is housed elsewhere,” said Kvedar.
Applications such as managing images hold more immediate benefit than clinical applications, and the two call for different strategies, according to Hamid Tabatabaie, president and CEO of LifeImage of Newton. He said that in comparison with using sneakernet to move images among health care providers, “the cloud is offering up help in that regard.”
Yet, when it comes to storing patient data at a service provider’s site, “It will take time for people to feel comfortable with having their personal data out there,” said Robert Buchanan, Jr., chief information officer at Anna Jacques Hospital in Newburyport.
Security in the cloud was closely tied to the move to electronic medical records during the panel discussion, which was moderated by Julie Korostoff of Mintz Levin. Buchanan’s hospital piloted an EMR project that didn’t work out as expected, in part because standards weren’t in place, he said. He and other panelists noted that federal initiatives are helping set standards, which gradually will be integrated into EMR and cloud offerings.
Patients aren’t alone in their concerns about the security of cloud computing. Tabatabaie noted that care providers “are extremely protective” of their data, and that is directly linked to their patients’ confidence in them as providers. “They don’t want to have patients take their business elsewhere,” he said.
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