Delivering better care to more people at a lower cost—this is no easy challenge in an environment that’s fragmented with disparate systems and disconnected information. With the right technology, however, health organizations can succeed, even while they balance the diverse demands of government regulators, health professionals, and consumers.
The solution lies in the cloud. Microsoft Office 365 integrates cloud-based versions of Microsoft communication and collaboration services—Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Lync Online—with the familiar Microsoft Office Professional Plus applications your people use every day. For health organizations of all sizes, Office 365 supports a secure, cost-efficient IT infrastructure while giving care providers and administrative staff easy-to-use productivity tools that can help you transform operations into collaborative, information-driven processes.
Improve productivity for better patient care
Streamlining information technology helps your organization focus its resources on improving the quality of medical services. With Office 365, you can deliver critical information virtually whenever and wherever it’s needed. Microsoft and partner solutions help connect disparate systems, processes, and data sources, unifying them with a single user interface for accessing multiple clinical and informational systems. Automating daily functions and extending workflows minimizes human error and helps keep information moving—from real-time reports on patients, customers, projects, and clinical trials to specific patient-care instructions—supporting timely decision-making and action.
Reduce operational costs and complexity
The subscription-based service and connected, streamlined, scalable infrastructure of Office 365 combine to lower your upfront and administrative costs while increasing your flexibility. From the start, Office 365 services are so familiar, easy-to-use, and adaptive that minimal training is required for employees to be productive right away. On-premises and online users can work together seamlessly, whether they’re in the clinic, at the office, or in the field.
With Office 365, your staff can create and collaborate with the same tools and features they already know well—Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and other Microsoft Office productivity applications. Integration with Office Web Apps enables the editing and sharing of Microsoft Office files from virtually anywhere with a supported browser or mobile phone.
Securely and reliably connect the healthcare ecosystem
The rich collaboration capabilities of Lync Online and SharePoint Online make it easy for stakeholders throughout the continuum of care to securely share sensitive data using your organization’s existing unified communications tools. With Exchange Online, users can access and manage work schedules, email messages, contacts, and calendars on nearly any device, and powerful web-based tools simplify online deployments for your IT department.
As a trusted data steward, Microsoft runs Office 365 on a global network of data centers, enabling covered entities to meet physical, administrative, and technical Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements. Microsoft security practices take a risk-based, multi-dimensional approach to safeguarding data and services, defining security requirements, and implementing the corresponding controls. With guaranteed 99.9-percent uptime, geo-redundancy, and built-in disaster recovery, Office 365 can help provide the robust security and reliability your data requires.
Microsoft Solutions and Compliance
Microsoft products and services, along with the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL), can help organizations address compliance with the technical, physical, and security safeguard requirements of the administrative simplification provision of HIPAA and its implementing regulations, including the Security Standards for Protecting Electronic Protected Health Information (HIPAA Security Rule) and the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (Privacy Rule), in addition to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), particularly Title XIII of ARRA, called the Health Information Technology (HIT) for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Additionally:
- Our goal at Microsoft is to be a covered entity’s trusted “data steward” as outlined by the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) Data Stewardship Primer. Our intention is to practice and ensure responsible and appropriate use and guardianship of electronic personal health data as per the Data Stewardship Primer’s guiding principles.
- Our objective is to help our covered entity customers support their HIPAA obligations across all of our on-premises and cloud solutions. Microsoft offers Business Associate Agreement (“BAA”) for Office 365 so our HIPAA-covered entity customers can address their HIPAA/HITECH requirements.
- Microsoft is committed to industry standards and to alignment with mandates and principles that covered entities must follow, including working with organizations such as the Health Information Trust (HITRUST) Alliance and the Common Security Framework for Covered Entities privacy and security requirements.
- Regarding compliance, certification, and audits of industry standards and technology standards, Microsoft supports the following where applicable and/or possible:
- Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) 70 (Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements [SSAE] 16)
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001
- Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)
- HIPAA physical, security, and technical safeguards, including applicable requirements of ARRA/HITECH
- Health Level Seven International (HL7) V2.x and V3.x
- Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 1.0 and 2.0
- Industry certification and support of security and technical standards continues to be a core part of the Microsoft services and solutions road map.
