Andrew Crouch of Level 3: Security Tops Health IT Industry Concerns for Cloud Adoption

Andrew Crouch of Level 3 Communications has urged the healthcare industry to do more to help enterprises trust cloud environments to keep their systems and information, noting that security remains a top concern for companies wanting to adopt the platform.

He cited a recent Level 3-commissioned report, where 42 percent of more than 50 healthcare customers and healthcare information technology leaders polled named security as a top barrier to cloud.

“Across the healthcare IT ecosystem, we need to do a better job of communicating secure architecture options for cloud,” Crouch, Level 3 regional president for North America and Asia Pacific, said Monday.

Crouch noted that common points of entry for hackers involve laptops, thumb drives and other physical assets, citing real-world hospital data breaches.

“Cloud is really the future of healthcare,” said Crouch.

“Despite a relatively low adoption rate, Level 3 anticipates that in 2014 as more organizations become educated about secure cloud options, more healthcare providers will turn to the cloud,” he concluded.