46.4% of respondents already use cloud services, while another 40% plan to do so, according to a report on the adoption of Cloud Computing in LATAM

The results of the first report on the adoption of cloud computing in healthcare organizations in Latin America, carried out by eHealth Reporter, show a clear trend towards the use of cloud services in the region: 9 out of 10 respondents are open to the use of the Cloud mode. In fact, 46.4% say they are already using cloud services, while 40% of them plan to do so in the future.

The study, sponsored by NTTDATA, is based on the answers of 169 respondents – who hold positions such as CEOS, CIOs, medical directors and other executives or system managers – in public and private healthcare organizations in 11 Latin American countries.

Private healthcare organizations seem to show a greater degree of maturity in Cloud implementation

Within the scope of cloud technology adoption, the study reveals that private hospitals or clinics have a great deal more effective implementations compared to public ones, thus inferring that they may be in a more mature phase of adoption in which they would be ready to extend their services and applications in this modality. However, the response from public healthcare organizations highlights that for the first time they have more plans to implement cloud computing.

Half of the organizations prefer SaaS model

Of the three existing cloud service models, 47.6% of the healthcare organizations in the region show a clear preference for the SaaS (Software as a Service) model, in which hospitals acquire and use something like the Electronic Health Record as a pay-per-use service.

26.2%, said they prefer the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) model and, finally, 13.1% of those preferred the PaaS (Platform as a Service) model.

Concern about data vulnerability in the cloud

The safety of clinical data in Cloud-Computing-based healthcare systems continues to be one of the main barriers in the path of adoption of this model by healthcare organizations in Latin America.
However, despite the reluctance and concerns of a third of the respondents with regard to information insecurity in the cloud, about 46.4% of respondents do not believe that patient health data is more exposed and insecure in this model.