Cloud storage is a hot topic for many companies because of its many advantages. Basically cloud storage allows companies to have access to larger storage networks, free up real estate used by traditional storage devices, and eliminate the need for an in-house server team. Cloud storage is also paid in increments instead of all at once so when everything is said and done a company can see immense cost savings. All that sounds great, but now let's talk about healthcare. The main concern with cloud storage in a healthcare environment is that sensitive patient data is not secure. Another is concern is that we know this data going into the "cloud", but where exactly is that? At my job, we even block any type of online storage, including iCloud, GoogleDocs, and Evernote for fear of patient data being compromised.
In this article, Cloud Storage Encryption and Healthcare, a security approach called Split-key Encryption is introduced. Taken from the article:
It allows healthcare providers for the first time to manage encryption
keys in the cloud, yet at the same time to split the encryption key, so
customers (for example a hospital using medical applications hosted in
the cloud) are the only ones who control their “half key”, and therefore
patient data is never visible to the cloud provider, or healthcare
software vendor.
It looks like the healthcare industry will be able to reap the benefits of cloud storage in the near future. Does this sound like a promising solution?
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