Healthcare IT is at a critical junction, battling increasing cybersecurity threats while facing significant data opportunities. Rural and community hospitals are particularly vulnerable to escalating ransomware attacks, facing intense cost pressures. Their core mission is clinical care, not IT management, making system resilience paramount.
Electronic health record (EHR) and electronic medical record (EMR) systems are prime targets. Downtime for these systems has consequences far beyond IT disruption. Cybersecurity threats are a constant assault, with bad actors and ransomware posing significant risks. Critical EHR and EMR systems cannot sustain downtime, making themes of resiliency and recovery vital for healthcare.
Shadow AI presents a new challenge, with protected health information potentially slipping outside hospital firewalls when clinicians use external tools for faster diagnoses. CloudWave, a healthcare-focused managed service provider, helps organizations build governance and guardrails to prevent data leaks while leveraging technology.
Staffing shortages continue to be a major hurdle, impacting both acquisition and retention. Clinicians focus on patient care, and IT often becomes a cost center. To alleviate these burdens, CloudWave is migrating customers to the Nutanix private cloud platform, aiming to reduce operating costs and allow hospital staff to concentrate on patient care.
IT staff should be focused on assisting clinicians with workflows, not managing hypervisors or upgrades that offer little clinical or operational value.