More than 75 percent of healthcare organizations plan to move IT systems to a public cloud within the year, according to research from security and compliance specialist HyTrust.

What’s more, despite widespread consensus that hospitals are cloud-averse, some 55 percent have already transitioned Tier 1 applications, described as mission-critical and containing sensitive data, to the cloud, HyTrust found.

That’s not to say that all skepticism and concerns about the cloud have been eliminated, however.

Data breaches and other security risks, in fact, ranked as the largest possible hindrances affecting migration to a software-defined data center, with 65 percent of respondents ranking a breach as likely or most likely. Another 55 percent ranked automation and orchestration as the second greatest obstacle to deploying a cloud platform.

Furthermore, 42 percent of those surveyed predict there will be more breaches this year and only 10 percent foresee fewer incidents. Interestingly, 29 percent of those working in the healthcare industry have been victims of a personal data breach.

A lack of options from current vendors and the immaturity of technology providers are the biggest barriers for more organizations adapting cloud deployment, according to 68 percent of respondents. And 28 percent believe the perception of Inadequate security combined with the fear of lower security levels within the physical data center are hindering adoption.

“What we find in this research is that the challenges are being overcome, and every kind of function in every kind of industry is being migrated,” HyTrust president Eric Chiu said in a statement. “There are some holdouts, to be sure, but they’re now the exception, and we’re betting they won’t stay that way for long.”

HyTrust surveyed over 500 executives from a wide range of industries, including healthcare. And the results were clear: companies are migrating an increasing number of workloads to more public clouds.

Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com

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