Key Takeaways:
- HIPAA compliance is crucial in healthcare to keep patient data safe and confidential
- Expert configuration is needed, whether working with Azure or AWS
- Cross-functional planning can ensure that every base is covered
- Phased execution and continuous testing can help maintain compliance at all times
It’s becoming increasingly clear that digital transformation is the future of healthcare. New technologies and smooth integration can improve patient outcomes, streamline care delivery and relieve budgetary pressures. Indeed, McKinsey has found that AI, machine learning and deep learning could collectively generate savings of up to $360 billion in global healthcare spending.
But with all that technology and data, comes responsibility about how it’s stored and shared - in the United States, those requirements are set out in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In this blog, we’ll explore how the growth of cloud has made HIPAA compliance more complex, and how to plan a successful, compliant cloud migration strategy.
Why Is HIPAA-Compliant Cloud So Important in US Healthcare?
Cloud adoption in healthcare is growing fast: it will grow by an average of 17.4% a year over the next decade. But at the same time, ever-larger data volumes increase the attack surface and therefore the vulnerability of healthcare data. The HIPAA Journal has found that in 2024, the health records of 82% of the American population were either exposed, stolen, or disclosed in ways they shouldn’t have been.
It’s for these reasons that HIPAA is in place, protecting patients’ data and their right to confidentiality through three key rules: the Security Rule that covers admin, physical and technical safeguards; the Privacy Rule that defines patient data, rights and sharing limitations; and the Breach Notification Rule that sets out how breaches should be reported in a timely manner.
Major cloud providers such as Azure and AWS are HIPAA-ready by design. However, these cloud platforms don’t guarantee HIPAA compliance as standard, and healthcare organizations are required to do their own configuration and management work to ensure HIPAA requirements are met. Many organizations may lack the resources or skill sets to achieve this in-house, which is why external support is often needed.
Planning a HIPAA-Compliant Cloud Migration
The good news is that with the right work and expertise, and the use of tools like CloudTrail (for AWS) or Azure Policy, a cloud migration can be configured to be HIPAA-compliant. From our extensive experience with these migrations and product engineering services, a good configuration should encompass:
- End-to-End Encryption: Using AWS KMS or Azure Key Vault for all sensitive healthcare data, both when at rest and in transit
- Identity and Access Management (IAM): Applying role-based access controls so that only authorized personnel can access data
- Zero Trust Architecture: Apply the principle of least privilege and verify every access request as standard, so the risk of implicit trust is eliminated
- Robust Audit Logging: Use AWS CloudTrail or Azure Monitor to track all data interactions and maintain HIPAA-mandated audit trails.
- Automated Backup & Disaster Recovery: Use tested recovery procedures and geo-redundant backups to keep data available during disruptions
These elements all feed into detailed cross-functional planning that ensures healthcare cloud compliance goals are met. This can help avoid common issues and mistakes, such as overlooking legacy system integration, going live without conducting full validations, and a lack of post-migration monitoring (especially immediately after go-live).
At Ciklum, this planning incorporates software architecture consulting, DevSecOps services and other areas HIPAA cloud engineering expertise, and includes:
Comprehensive Risk Assessment
Thorough evaluations of existing data workflows, storage patterns and potential vulnerabilities, so that compliance risks and security gaps can be identified
Strategic Stakeholder Engagement
Including IT security, legal representatives, compliance offices and cloud architects on the migration teams, so that every perspective and operational need is considered
Phased Execution
Starting with non-critical systems and validating at each stage, rollout gradually moves towards more sensitive environments, which allows for security testing and operational adjustments along the way
Secure Data Transfer
Using encrypted data channels and dedicated connections, such as AWS Direct Connect or Azure ExpressRoute, to keep data safe during migration
Continuous Testing
Deploying automated compliance and security testing at every migration stage to ensure HIPAA requirements are consistently maintained
What Does The Future of Healthcare Cloud Compliance Look Like?
Compliance will continue to be a key issue for healthcare organizations in the months and years ahead. HIPAA Journal research has found that only 31% of healthcare compliance and risk professionals feel very prepared to meet future challenges, and only 42% expressed high levels of confidence that care quality could be maintained amid compliance and risk issues.
This means that all healthcare organizations will have to take an approach of continuous improvement, and constantly be on the lookout for new technologies and approaches that can aid their compliance efforts. This will include comprehensive zero-trust frameworks that authenticate every interaction with data; AI and machine learning that can detect anomalous patterns of data access; and real-time compliance validation so that HIPAA alignment can be maintained proactively, even as cloud infrastructure evolves.
In Summary: Partner with Ciklum to Ensure HIPAA-Ready Cloud Engineering
Compliance demands aren’t going away, and the ever-rising threat of cyberattacks and increasingly severe consequences of them means that now is the time to take action and put the right compliance technologies and frameworks in place.
Healthcare organizations all over the United States partner with Ciklum to help them implement HIPAA-compliant infrastructure. We combine DevSecOps, automation and personalized engagement to tailor a phased rollout of compliance technologies that perfectly fit organizational needs.
To find out more about healthcare cloud compliance, or to schedule a free consultation and cloud assessment for your organization, get in touch with the Ciklum team today.
