As a healthcare organization, how can you move your workloads to the cloud without putting security and compliance at risk? Each app your organization uses comes with different security concerns. And the data they each hold has to be handled using a range of HIPAA-compliant controls.

How can you benefit from the cost savings and flexibility of the cloud while checking off all the data-protection boxes?

The answer is a cloud landing zone. For healthcare cloud solutions, a landing zone gives you a secure, reliable architecture you can use to deploy a number of cloud-based apps and processes. Here’s more detail about how cloud landing zones work and a comparison of two of the most common options for healthcare: AWS and Azure.

What Is a Cloud Landing Zone in Healthcare?

For healthcare cloud solutions, a landing zone is an environment preconfigured with controls that make it ideal for securely hosting your applications and workflows.

This makes it an ideal starting point for any healthcare organization looking to make more use of the cloud—especially because it can automatically protect your organization from running afoul of compliance regulations.

For instance, suppose you’re working in AWS, and you set up an S3 bucket containing ePHI data. Thanks to your S3 bucket, you can integrate this data into a number of apps, seamlessly making everything from intake forms to patient follow-up far easier.

But what if you leave your S3 bucket publicly accessible? This would be a serious problem. You’d be exposing sensitive personal data to the world, making your cloud system in direct violation of HIPAA standards. The resulting fines and reputational damage could be severe.

With a cloud landing zone, making this kind of mistake would be nearly impossible. Your landing zone would include guardrails to make sure you only deploy secure, protected S3 buckets in your environment.

In this way, landing zones prevent costly mistakes when designing and deploying healthcare cloud solutions.

Guardrails Mapped to HIPAA and HITRUST Requirements

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) establishes federal requirements for protecting the privacy and security of protected health information (PHI), including electronic protected health information (ePHI), within healthcare organizations and their business associates. It also includes privacy and security rules for providers and insurers.HITRUST is a certifiable security framework that harmonizes multiple regulatory and security standards including HIPAA, NIST, ISO, and othersinto a unified control framework.

Organizations that choose to get HITRUST certified may earn the trust of business partners and customers who respect their high standards around data protection.

Landing zone guardrails establish baseline security controls that help ensure systems deployed in the environment align with HIPAA and HITRUST security requirements. Mapping guardrails to HIPAA and HITRUST means each set of guardrails often includes frameworks around:

• Identity and access management, such as role-based access controls (RBAC) and multi-factor authentication.
• Network segmentation, including private networks for clinical systems and highly controlled data flows regulated by firewalls.
• Networks designed to protect sensitive information, such as electronic protected health information (ePHI).
• Default encryption for data as it moves from one place to another and while it’s at rest.
• Automated key management with rotation policies to protect encryption keys used by applications, services, and data storage.
• Logging and monitoring systems that keep track of audit logs and security events, as well as retain information in accordance with HIPAA and HITRUST requirements.
• Automatic compliance checks to make sure your system is continuously enforcing all policies.

A Comparison of AWS and Azure Guardrails

As you can see from the table, both AWS and Azure use existing tools to establish your healthcare cloud landing zone. When used in combination, they result in guardrails that keep data and workflows compliant.

Why a Landing Zone Is Important for Healthcare Teams

A landing zone is important for your IT team because it can eliminate many architectural mistakes long before they happen. For example, without a landing zone, you may have to set up individual security rules for a billing app, an imaging app, and one that monitors patient progress.

A relatively simple oversight could leave sensitive data unprotected and your organization vulnerable to compliance issues. Also consider the time and energy compliance reviews require. You have to comb through every system and workflow. Sometimes, you have to build complicated, time-consuming data maps that traverse your entire environment.

It’s also easy for an environment that started as compliant to drift toward non-compliance over time. For instance, you may begin with a few apps in your cloud environment, all with strong security controls. But suppose you introduce another app that uses outdated encryption. This could put your whole environment at risk and result in an expensive breach.

On the other hand, with a landing zone, every system starts out with the same stringent compliance controls, and they get automatically checked on a regular basis.

Plus, with a landing zone:

• You have security controls from the moment you implement each system.
• It’s easy and fast to produce compliance evidence that you can show to auditors and internal governance teams.
• Internal teams that build and install apps can design and implement with confidence, knowing they’re not going to make a decision that could make your organization drift out of compliance.

Landing Zones Protect Your Entire Community

While your IT team may have to choose and use the best landing zone, implementing one benefits a long list of stakeholders. For instance:

• Patients don’t have to worry about their data being safe in one app but exposed in another.
• Dev teams can build solutions without having to constantly backtrack to address non-compliant code.
• Doctors can pull and input data as they wish, knowing it’s going to stay safe.
• Billing and insurance teams can trust that personal information they access and input is secure, and they’re not unnecessarily exposing patients to fraud.
• Vendors and other third-party providers can connect to your network safely because your landing zone reduces the chances of an attacker moving laterally into their system.

Healthcare Cloud Landing Zone FAQs

Q: What makes a healthcare landing zone different from those used in other industries?

A: Healthcare landing zones may have stricter controls when it comes to who can access your network and how data gets stored and shared. Also, due to the prevalence of HIPAA audits, a healthcare landing zone may make audit data more available than a typical landing zone for another industry. Encryption protocols may also be more up to date due to the high encryption standards that healthcare organizations need to conform to.

Q: Does having a landing zone mean you’re automatically compliant?

A: No. A landing zone makes it easier to meet compliance standards because its guardrails can prevent non-compliant use of your cloud environment—but you still have to make sure you enforce compliance policies.

Q: Can a small healthcare practice use a landing zone, or is it only for larger organizations?

A: Yes, small practices can use landing zones and benefit just as much as larger organizations. A landing zone is ideal for deploying and building many apps and making sure they’re all compliant. A small practice may have to use a large portfolio of apps to keep its labor costs down, making a landing zone a powerful safety mechanism.

Q: Is it possible to use both AWS and Azure landing zones?

A: Yes! You don’t have to limit your landing zone deployment to a single cloud environment. For some organizations, for instance, the development team may prefer one cloud provider over another. If so, you can set up a landing zone in the environment they prefer. Also, it may be easier to transform certain processes in either AWS or Azure. Setting up a second landing zone can save time and money in your transformation process.

Q: Do guardrails make it impossible to experience a breach?

A: No, guardrails aren’t a panacea against breaches. They just make sure your environments have modern, stringent protections. You should still consider insider attacks and some zero-day assaults as valid threats.

Q: We don’t know how to configure our landing zone. How can we get help?

A: RapidScale offers support for landing zone configuration. You can also check out your provider’s help docs and tutorials, which can answer many common questions.

By setting up a cloud landing zone for your healthcare organization, you can drastically reduce the chances of non-compliant apps or workflows increasing your risk. Getting started is relatively straightforward. RapidScale’s healthcare experts know how to configure your system and make sure it mitigates as much of your risk as possible. Send our team a message today to get more information.