The future often surprises us – who would have imagined 50 years ago that we’d manage finances online, stream endless content, or have self-driving cars? Similarly, while cloud-based data storage and computing have revolutionised many industries, healthcare has been slower to adapt due to security and compliance concerns.
Yet, as more healthcare leaders adopt sector-specific cloud solutions, they’re discovering the benefits of cost-effective, scalable, and secure data management. This shift not only enhances care delivery and connectivity but also addresses the complexities of regulatory compliance, vast data volumes, and integration challenges.
With heightened cyber security threats and the need for immediate, secure access to patient information, traditional local or basic internet drives are no longer adequate. Embracing cloud hosting transforms data management, offering improved security, performance, and cost-efficiency essential for modern healthcare.
Here’s why making the switch to cloud hosting is essential for healthcare organisations:
Mitigate cyber security risks
Cyber security is a top priority in healthcare, where sensitive patient information is a prime target for cyber-attacks. Local networks and common internet storage solutions often lack the robust security measures required to protect this data effectively. Cloud hosting solutions provide advanced encryption and security protocols that significantly reduce the risk of data breaches. By moving to cloud hosting, you safeguard your patient data with high-level security measures, enhancing your protection against cyber threats.
Boost performance and efficiency
Cloud hosting solutions can dramatically enhance your operational performance. Unlike local drives, which can suffer from downtime and performance issues, cloud services ensure that your systems are running smoothly 24/7/365. This continuous availability gives you constant access to your clinical and operational data, optimising your workflow and boosting overall efficiency. With uninterrupted system uptime and improved performance, your healthcare operations can maintain the highest level of service and responsiveness.
Reduce maintenance costs and hassle
Maintaining local drives involves ongoing costs and administrative burdens related to maintenance and system upgrades. Cloud hosting eliminates these concerns by handling all aspects of system maintenance for you. It removes the hassle of manual upgrades and the associated costs of maintaining physical infrastructure. These are replaced with automatic updates to ensure systems are always current, allowing you to focus on providing quality patient care without any IT challenges.
Enhance compliance with greater reliability
Compliance with Australian healthcare regulations is essential, and cloud hosting provides a reliable solution for meeting these requirements. According to the Australian Health Digital Agency, healthcare providers must ensure their cloud service provider stores data in Australia as this will ensure consistency of legal protections, and will enable Australian authorities to provide assistance, if necessary. It offers enhanced network reliability and high-level security, ensuring that your data management practices align with compliance standards. By leveraging cloud technology, you benefit from a more secure environment that supports your commitment to data privacy and regulatory adherence, providing peace of mind that your information is handled correctly.
Secure data storage
Ensuring that all your clinical and operational data is securely stored is fundamental to effective healthcare management. Cloud hosting offers a secure and reliable repository for all your critical information, with regular backups and disaster recovery capabilities. This protects your data from physical damage, loss, or theft, ensuring that it remains safe and accessible when you need it.
The MasterCare Cloud Hosting Benefit
MasterCare’s cloud hosting solution is designed to revolutionise how healthcare providers manage and store their critical data. Here’s how our solution can support your healthcare facility:
Cutting-edge security
MasterCare leverages Microsoft Azure (Australia) as its infrastructure platform, offering best-in-class security measures. Azure’s protocols include detecting, assessing, diagnosing, stabilising, and closing vulnerabilities to protect your data from attacks. Additionally, Azure meets international industry-specific security standards and is supplemented by commercial security solutions such as firewalls and anti-virus systems. At MasterCare our annual penetration testing ensures the security setup is up-to-date, and we hold ISO 27001:2022 certification, reflecting our commitment to security standards.
Reliable security
We engage an independent security consulting company to perform a 4 phase infrastructure penetration test annually. We then work on resolving the issues and findings within 30 days from the report issue date.
The test consists of the following phases:
- Active host identification (device discovery). The Pen-tester will establish a profile of MasterCare provided Internet Protocol (“IP”) subnets to identify the active Devices (as defined below) within those subnets.
- Vulnerability Scanning. The Pen-tester will analyse available network services and the IP stack fingerprints of active Devices identified.
- Vulnerability Validation. The Pen-tester will attempt to validate the results of vulnerability scanning in order to identify (and disregard) false-positive results and validate other positive results from automated testing.
- Exploitation. Once the Pen-tester establishes an understanding of device’s roles, potential trust relationships, accessible network services and potential vulnerabilities, the pen-tester will attempt to gain access to target systems.
Round-the-clock system performance
With MasterCare, your systems run smoothly 24/7/365. This continuous availability ensures constant access to your clinical and operational data, optimising workflow and boosting efficiency.
Automatic updates
Our cloud hosting includes automatic updates, removing the hassle of manual upgrades and ensuring your systems are always updated. This reduces maintenance costs and administrative burdens, allowing you to focus on providing quality patient care.
Backup automation
Daily automatic backups of your hosting environment ensure that your data is consistently protected and readily available. This minimises the risk of data loss and enhances reliability.
Disaster recovery
MasterCare employs a multi-zone setup in Azure to provide strong disaster recovery capabilities. This setup ensures resilience against data loss and system outages, protecting your environment and data.
Scalable and adaptable
MasterCare’s cloud hosting solution eliminates the need for local hardware support and maintenance. You can scale your environment up or down as your organisation grows, adapting to changing needs seamlessly.
Adaptable and Dependable
By hosting your data on our SaaS platforms, your employees can work from any location with an internet access. This adaptability keeps your team productive and responsive, regardless of location.
Data ownership and security
With MasterCare, you own your data. Our hosting is based in Australia, ensuring your data is stored securely within the country and fully compliant with Australian regulations.
Conclusion
Switching from local networks to a cloud hosting solution is a strategic move that offers significant advantages for Australian healthcare providers. By enhancing cyber security, improving performance, reducing maintenance costs, and ensuring compliance, cloud hosting supports a more efficient and secure approach to managing health data.
Don’t let high-risk local networks hold you back.
Get in touch with us to find out how our cloud hosting solution can advance your healthcare practice’s data management and security.
