Atlantic.Net

Marty Puranik

Marty Puranik is the founder and CEO of Atlantic.Net, a global cloud infrastructure provider specializing in security and compliance. Under Marty’s leadership since 1994, the company serves customers in over 100 countries, a diverse range of industries with solutions including HIPAA-compliant hosting and PCI-compliant hosting, backed by bare metal servers, dedicated hosting, GPU hosting, colocation, and its award-winning Cloud Platform. Operating from eight strategically located data center regions across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Asia, Atlantic.Net powers mission-critical workloads for organizations worldwide.

Healthcare businesses must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), enacted in 1996, to protect patients’ sensitive data from unauthorized access or use. HIPAA classifies this data as protected health information (PHI) and electronic protected health information (ePHI) when it is collected and processed electronically via computer systems. Many modern healthcare companies use cloud hosting instead of in-house data centers to support their IT environments.

Why HIPAA-Compliant Hosting is Essential for Your Business

Decision-makers in healthcare companies must engage a HIPAA-compliant hosting provider to safeguard their ePHI. Businesses must view a HIPAA-compliant infrastructure as a necessity when processing sensitive ePHI to protect themselves and their patients. A data breach involving ePHI can be devastating to the individuals whose information has been compromised and the company responsible for protecting it.

Organizations face the following risks when they do not prioritize HIPAA compliance when selecting a cloud hosting vendor.

1. Legal and financial penalties: Companies face substantial financial penalties for non-compliance with HIPAA data privacy and security standards. These civil penalties can severely affect a business’s bottom line and, in some cases, force it to cease operations. Organizations and business leaders can also face criminal penalties, including prison time, for malicious breaches or those designed to provide the culprits with financial gain.

2. Reputational damage: Healthcare businesses rely heavily on trust to attract and retain customers. Patients must believe that their healthcare providers take every precaution to protect their sensitive personal information. A data breach involving ePHI can destroy a company’s reputation with the patient community. Organizations face a difficult challenge in recovering their prior standing with prospective customers and may never regain the same level of trust as before the breach.

3. Reduced return on investment (ROI): Modern businesses spend significant financial resources on their IT environments. Companies expect to achieve a positive ROI on their infrastructure spending as it supports business objectives and competitiveness in the marketplace. The costs of a data breach caused by non-compliant infrastructure can erode or eliminate any positive ROI. Businesses must avoid taking financially attractive shortcuts that do not provide the benefits of a fully HIPAA-compliant IT environment.

Business Benefits of HIPAA-Compliant Hosting

Business owners or top company decision-makers must be involved in selecting a HIPAA-compliant hosting partner. The choice is too important to the company’s long-term health and viability to be viewed as simply an IT function. Healthcare companies can expect the following business benefits with HIPAA-compliant hosting.

Enhanced ePHI protection: A compliant hosting provider implements robust security measures, such as encryption and intrusion detection, to reduce the risk of data breaches and the associated financial and reputational damage.

Improved audit-readiness: The provider’s experience with HIPAA requirements enables them to provide the necessary compliance evidence to address regulatory audits.

"Business owners and top decision-makers must help select a HIPAA-compliant hosting partner; it’s too vital to long-term health and viability to treat as IT alone."

Competitive advantage: Businesses can promote their HIPAA compliance to position themselves as a secure, trustworthy choice for customers, giving them an advantage over competitors opting for non-compliant IT solutions.

Resilience and business continuity: Companies can rely on a HIPAA-compliant provider to offer business continuity services that ensure the organization’s health after a disaster or cyberattack.

Strategic value: Businesses can future-proof themselves by using a compliant infrastructure that adapts to changes required to address evolving HIPAA regulations and stricter privacy laws.

Companies can reduce risk, build trust, strengthen market position, and enhance operational resilience by engaging a HIPAA-compliant hosting provider.

Critical Features in a HIPAA-Compliant Hosting Vendor

Organizations can reduce the challenge of identifying a reliable, HIPAA-compliant hosting provider like Atlantic. Net by evaluating the features and services each vendor offers. The following are some of the most consequential factors companies should consider when choosing a hosting partner.

Business Associate Agreements (BAAs): The provider must sign a BAA that defines the permitted uses of ePHI, the safeguards required to protect it, and breach notification timelines. The BAA should also clearly outline each party’s responsibilities for securing ePHI. The absence of a BAA renders the provider non-compliant, despite the quality of its technical controls and infrastructure.

Technical safeguards: HIPAA compliance requires encrypting ePHI in transit and at rest, with secure key management procedures. Other safeguards include implementing multi-factor authentication, least-privilege access, and immutable logs.

Physical safeguards: The provider must demonstrate data center security via independent SSAE 18 or SOC 2 audits. They must enforce controlled access to systems that process ePHI and provide 24/7 on-site security. The data center should have redundant power and cooling systems to meet HIPAA data availability requirements.

Backup and disaster recovery: Prospective providers should offer automated backups and maintain well-defined disaster recovery plans and procedures to enable rapid recovery of ePHI and support business continuity.

Data isolation: Providers must offer segmented, isolated environments to protect ePHI from other cloud tenants and meet HIPAA regulations.

Availability of compliance evidence: The provider should allow customers to review compliance evidence, including documentation from third-party security audits.

For companies in the healthcare industry, HIPAA compliance is not optional. The financial and reputational risks of non-compliance leading to a data breach are too great. Companies can significantly reduce these risks by partnering with a cloud provider that offers HIPAA-compliant hosting. Business decision-makers must be involved in promoting compliance to ensure the security of ePHI and the viability of their company.