Cloud services go mainstream in healthcare

If you asked a CIO managing IT for a healthcare organization in 2012 how much of his software ran in the cloud, the percentages would have been low. That's no longer the case as 2016 nears. Emboldened by agreements to adhere to federal guidelines for protecting personal healthcare information (PHI), hospitals are a turning to cloud computing to make their organizations more nimble. Healthcare CIOs, mirroring their counterparts in corporations, are taking the cloud mainstream. The difference between 2012 and 2015 is largely one of vendors' willingness to sign business associate agreements (BAA) regarding personal healthcare information, or PHI.