The Convergence of Innovation and Compliance

We’re all back and catching up from an exciting and engaging week at HIMSS19. Many of us came into this conference anticipating talk of innovation with a focus on advanced and emerging technologies. Of course, the reality of privacy, security and compliance rises up like a three-headed dragon and, suddenly, we find ourselves feeling limited or less innovative. In reality, privacy, security and compliance can actually speed adoption of healthcare innovation in incredibly important, scalable and sustainable ways, and this year’s HIMSS was full of examples of healthcare organizations that are flourishing while they innovate securely in the cloud. They’re succeeding because they understand the current state of convergence with innovation and compliance.

One reason compliance is so important to innovation is because healthcare is increasingly a collaborative playing field. Payers and providers need to share data. Lifesciences organizations are working across healthcare sectors. Consolidation and collaboration is becoming more commonplace and complex at the same time. Look at recent examples from CVS and Aetna, Roche and Flatiron, or the Amazon – Berkshire Hathaway – Chase announcements. These organizations are trying to break through problems to better patient experiences, accelerate translational medicine and drive reduced cost and improved outcomes.

Wrapped around these challenges are rising risks. Today your credit card information is worth about 25¢ to hackers, where your medical record can net $1,000. Ransomware is a daily threat, and breaches are announced weekly on the OCR’s Wall of Shame. And, regulations are becoming increasingly complex, with HIPAA joined by GDPR and GxP, and now states including Vermont and California have passed their own versions of citizen rights similar to GDPR’s right to be forgotten.

So how do we innovate in the midst of this? The answer is actually surprisingly simple. Innovation requires collaboration. Collaboration requires trust. And privacy, security and compliance improve trust very effectively in the cloud which can serve as a Switzerland-like, neutral place in which to collaborate.

I recently spoke with ClearDATA’s CTO Matt Ferrari about this on his podcast series CTO Talk. You can give it a listen here as we discuss recent collaborations and innovations across the healthcare landscape.

Innovations by their nature are breaking a mold, and because they are often collaborative and require combining people, processes and technology in new ways, the bar for trust is set higher. If you can demonstrate that you’ve been thorough in thinking about your environment’s safety aspects, and its efficacy and efficiency at making thing better while remaining secure and private, you will build trust and confidence in the innovation, which will speed adoption.

When you partner with ClearDATA, you get a healthcare-exclusive, managed services and solutions on your choice of the three big public clouds. And, we’ll bring our HITRUST certification to bear as we focus our full energy and expertise on protecting your organization, so you can innovate and scale with agility. You’ll have a constant view of your compliance through a Compliance Dashboard mapped to regulatory frameworks including HIPAA, GDPR and GxP, and Automated Safeguards that provide guardrails as you innovate.