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ASP, Cloud and SaaS Electronic Health Records (EHR) – What’s the Difference?

Cloud EHR is becoming very popular.  What is Cloud EHR and how does it differ from SaaS and ASP EHR?

Electronic Health Records are one of many types of software and data storage that may use terms such ASP (Application Service Protocol), SaaS (Software as a Service), Internet-based, Web-based or Cloud.  Unfortunately, there are no industry standards for what these terms mean.  As a result, you can’t rely on any of these to tell you how an EHR works.

Since you can’t rely on the terminology, you need to know or ask:

Does the EHR vendor charge a separate hosting fee?

If they do, this is a good indication that the system was not designed for hosting.  This is important because systems designed for hosting will usually use the Internet more effectively and be faster than systems that were not designed for hosting.

Will your data be housed on its own servers or on the same servers with other customers?

While it might seem you want your data on its own servers, this is probably not the best solution for you because use of separate servers is a big indicator that the EHR was not designed for remote hosting.  Also, a separate server makes it much harder for the vendor to manage system performance for each separate server.

Do you have to sign a lease or a long-term contract with no early-out provision?

This usually means the vendor (or someone else!) is purchasing and hosting separate servers for you and they require the lease or long-term contract because they don’t want to get stuck with your old servers if you bail.

Do you have to buy or use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) or any other special software or hardware in order to access the system?

If so, the system was not really designed for the Internet.

In what type of Data Center is the system hosted?

Many well-known systems allow their resellers to host their systems to help the reseller make money and relieve the vendor from hosting responsibility.  For example,  per this article, “Although Centricity Practice is a licensed product, resellers will offer a remotely hosted version…”.  That might be great for the reseller but how securely is a reseller hosting your system?  Do they use a Tier IV Data Center?

By asking a few questions you can make sure you understand how and where your system and data will be stored.  Also by knowing whether or not your EHR was really designed for the Internet, you will know more about what to expect with regard to speed and access.

C. Huddle, VP, Market Development

 

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