Carpathia introduces beta program for Healthcare Community Cloud Service

Carpathia, a trusted cloud operator and leading provider of hybrid cloud services and managed hosting, today launched the beta program for Healthcare Community Cloud Service™ (HCCS™), an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution that offers healthcare providers and affiliated service companies access to a compliant and scalable cloud infrastructure, purpose-built to help customers manage risk and ensure compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) regulations.

Cloud adoption across the healthcare industry is growing, but uncertainty around security and compliance remains a key barrier to adoption for organizations handling sensitive electronic protected health information (ePHI). The cost of non-compliance and exposure of ePHI goes beyond loss of trust; penalties can cost an organization into the millions for each violation. HCCS addresses this challenge by offering a community cloud solution designed to meet stringent healthcare security and compliance requirements–including entering into Business Associate Agreements (BAA) with all HCCS customers.

"Security and compliance risk remains the top concern for healthcare providers," said Philip Hedlund, vice president of business operations, Carpathia. "HCCS offers organizations peace of mind by delivering the benefits of the cloud in an environment built specifically for the rigorous security and compliance requirements of the healthcare community. We encourage organizations to join our beta program and experience the benefits for themselves."

HCCS is designed specifically to meet the security requirements for covered healthcare entities and their business associates – including healthcare providers, health plan administrators, and healthcare clearinghouses – that must comply with HIPAA and HITECH requirements. HCCS delivers instant access to compute and storage resources built on a platform designed to meet Common Security Framework (CSF) standards as defined by the Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST).

Key features of HCCS include:

• Instant Access to Compute Resources: Self-service provisioning of compute and network resources via web portal (or API)
• High Performance Storage: Delivered with industry-leading EMC^® technology, supporting encryption at rest
• Hybrid Implementation Support: Customers can easily allocate and manage workloads between HCCS and any VMware vSphere™ implementation
• Compliance: HCCS is designed to meet the CSF standards as defined by HITRUST
• Business Associate Status: Carpathia will enter into Business Associate Agreements with all customers of HCCS

Carpathia's technology solution incorporates EMC's VNX^® hybrid flash storage arrays, which provide a unified, high-performance storage solution optimized to both protect ePHI and meet the high transactional demands of healthcare applications. Carpathia's HCCS also uses components of VMware's suite of products, including vRealize™, which simplifies and accelerates end-to-end cloud resource provisioning, delivery, and management.

"To further improve team-based care, we are starting to see more healthcare organizations move toward trusted, hybrid cloud models to help balance clinical and business application workloads with both on-premise and off-premise resources," said Dave DeAngelis, global healthcare manager, EMC Corporation. "With Carpathia's Healthcare Community Cloud Service, Health IT can gain instant access to IT resources while lowering costs."