Cloud Technology Overturns IT Assumptions

The intrusion made QualSight consider the possibility of perhaps its database elsewhere.

Before the evaluation was complete, fate intervened one more time. A major power outage in Chicago took QualSight's services offline for six hours.

"We lost a lot of data, and at this point, the company decided we need to select a cloud vendor very quickly," Navarro says.

FireHost's security stood out. Navarro hasn't regretted the decision.

"The applications ... are shared between 800 practices, and most of the information that they're entering is completely HIPAA," he says. "We're talking about patients. We're talking about patient social security numbers. We're talking about outcomes of surgeries. We're talking information that's very delicate."

The switch over to the cloud was accomplished in a single weekend. "There were some changes that were required on our end, programming changes, just to make it compatible, but we did this over a weekend, so the practices never noticed anything," Navarro says.