Healthcare and life science organizations are increasingly reliant on a diverse range of digital applications – from websites and intranets to data tracking and patient portals. These applications are vital to the functioning and progress of the industry. However, the sensitive nature of the data that healthcare and life science organizations handle means that generic hosting solutions often fall short of meeting their specific needs and expectations. For example, life-science hosting solutions may need to maintain custom integrations, third-party tools, high-performance databases, or even geographic restrictions on data. In addition, they must be designed for regulatory compliance around healthcare data privacy and security.
To further explore the industry-specific requirements of application hosting, Miriam Hyman, a senior content strategist at HDMZ, interviewed Systems Reliability Manager Enrique Conci, an expert in HDMZ’s life science and healthcare application hosting services.
Miriam: It seems as if hosting a web-based portal or website for a life science organization may be more complicated than application hosting in other industries. What are some of the hidden demands of healthcare and life science hosting?
Enrique: One of the biggest things companies often underestimate is the complexity of regulatory compliance. They might think, "We can handle regulatory compliance on our own." But for healthcare and life sciences – especially when dealing with patient information – there's a labyrinth of evolving regulations, including HIPAA, that dictate how that data must be handled, secured, and hosted. It's not just a checkbox; it’s a continuous responsibility that affects everything from password policies to data encryption and backup plans. Many life science organizations, especially smaller ones, are simply unaware of the significant time, effort, and resources involved in achieving and maintaining compliance.
Miriam: What happens if someone uses an application hosting service that is not regulatory compliant
Enrique: If a company’s application hosting isn’t compliant, the team might realize the oversight during an audit or, worse, after a data breach of sensitive health information. This can lead to severe financial penalties, legal repercussions, and reputation damage – it’s not a risk worth taking.
Miriam: How do HDMZ’s hosting solutions keep up with healthcare-specific compliance and data security?
Enrique: Ensuring regulatory compliance, especially with HIPAA, is foundational to how we design, build and manage our hosting environments. We undergo regular Security Risk Assessments (SRAs) every year, which are comprehensive evaluations to ensure we're meeting a long list of requirements. This includes enforcing strong passwords; encrypting data when it's stored and when it's transmitted; using SSL certificates; and adhering to the principle of least privilege, meaning users only have the access necessary for their roles. We also have robust backups and disaster recovery procedures in place, which are critical requirements for HIPAA compliance.
Furthermore, we work closely with a lawyer specializing in HIPAA on an ongoing basis to stay updated on evolving regulations and to get clarity on specific scenarios. We also make sure that the vendors we use, such as AWS and Google Cloud, have their own compliance certifications.
Miriam: How do regulatory compliance and security overlap? For example, does achieving regulatory compliance as a host mean that healthcare and life science applications are secured from cyberattacks?
Enrique: Not entirely. Sensitive data attracts malicious actors – from phishing to full-on infrastructure attacks. A hosting service may be regulatory compliant, but if it isn’t vigilant and successful at defending against cyberattacks, it can still lead to data loss, data theft, service disruptions, and financial damage. Because we handle potentially sensitive healthcare-related data, we implement especially high levels of security through a multi-layered approach that complements – but remains distinct from – our compliance policies.
For example, one element of a security strategy is knowing how to manage the threat of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This is where a massive number of computers, often infected with malware, try to take down a website or application all at once, overwhelming its servers and making it unavailable to legitimate users. To combat this, we employ DDoS prevention strategies. This includes using L7 Load Balancers, which can intelligently manage traffic, and tools such as Cloudflare, which acts as an additional shield against malicious traffic.
We also have strategies to combat common platform-specific cyberattacks, by implementing software-level firewalls such as ModSecurity or AWS WAF. These tools are specifically configured by our team to analyze incoming traffic, and block anything that looks suspicious.
Miriam: Wow. I didn’t realize there were so many types of cyberattacks to keep track of. Do you have separate processes in place to protect against less intentional disruptions to website reliability and performance?
Enrique: Absolutely. Anything that impacts the performance or reliability of an application is a risk, and we have strategies to mitigate it. An application that is slow or unreliable can harm a company’s credibility or revenue. In the case of life science and healthcare companies, a frustrating application can have very serious implications if it disrupts patient care or critical healthcare workflows.
Beyond fending off cyberattacks, ensuring an application’s performance and reliability requires handling normal, but sometimes unpredictable, website traffic. For instance, a healthcare organization might have a sudden spike in traffic if it announces a new research breakthrough or launches a public health campaign. We've seen this happen with clients in the past.
To handle these traffic surges, we use auto-scaling strategies. This system automatically analyzes the traffic flow and adjusts the computing resources in real-time. So, if there's a sudden influx of visitors, the system scales up the resources to handle the load, preventing any slowdowns or downtime. This happens automatically, so our clients don’t need to think about it.
We also have auto-healing features built into our systems. If a system component encounters an issue, the system can often automatically reboot or recreate that component. We use technologies, such as Kubernetes and Layer 7 load balancers, that can detect failing parts of the infrastructure and automatically redirect traffic, and even create replacements, ensuring continuous service. And, we provide 24/7 support from experts in application hosting (such as myself) to address any issues that might arise. With all of these layers of security in place, we will essentially always catch and resolve issues before our clients know there was a problem.
Miriam: Now, all this security and reliability sounds great – but I’m guessing it doesn’t come cheap. How do you help clients balance security, reliability and compliance with their budget?
Enrique: Honestly, it's a misconception that robust security and compliance for healthcare hosting has to be prohibitively expensive. We position HDMZ as offering much more value for the same price, or even less, than many other healthcare-specialized hosting services – and even some generic hosting services.
The key is that we provide a comprehensive suite of services tailored specifically for the healthcare and life science industries. While a company might be tempted by a seemingly cheaper hosting provider, it often misses out on critical aspects, such as built-in HIPAA compliance, strong encryption, comprehensive backups, and proactive 24/7 support. We've seen companies come to us after realizing their previous non-healthcare-specific hosting wasn't up to par, sometimes after learning the hard way. By choosing a specialized provider, such as HDMZ, clients get a predictable cost for a service that inherently addresses their complex regulatory and security needs, potentially saving them significant expenses and headaches in the long run. It's about understanding the long-term value and risk mitigation, rather than just the initial price tag.
Miriam: That makes a lot of sense. Are there other differentiators that healthcare and life science organizations should look for in a hosting service?
Enrique: Flexibility is a major differentiator for HDMZ. Healthcare and life science organizations work with a wide variety of digital tools beyond just standard websites, such as internal tracking systems, patient portals, and specialized tools for research or managing medical devices. They need a hosting provider that can support this diverse landscape.
We offer the ability to adapt to specific client requirements and create custom environments tailored to their unique needs. This includes supporting various platforms – not just one or two. We can even provide fully dedicated environments for clients with stringent security or scalability needs. Another aspect of flexibility is ownership: We take ownership of managing the entire hosting package, including website updates and backups, freeing up the client's internal IT teams. We can also collaborate with external development teams if a client prefers. This is a real advantage compared to more rigid, generic hosting solutions. Clients should look for a hosting provider that can be a true partner, rather than forcing them into a one-size-fits-all solution.
Miriam: This has been incredibly insightful, Enrique, thank you.
Enrique: You're welcome. I’m glad I could provide a clearer picture of application hosting in healthcare and life sciences.
