As hospitals, doctors’ offices, health insurance companies, and others in the healthcare eco-system are constantly looking for ways to efficiently deliver care for patients, many healthcare-related IT departments are turning to the cloud. A 2015 HIMSS Analytics survey revealed that 83% of IT executives report using cloud services today, with SaaS-based applications being the most popular (66.9%). Augmentation of technological capabilities or capacity, financial metrics and time to deploy solutions are cited as the primary reasons for choosing cloud .

Even with the industry’s high cloud adoption rate and dazzling new technologies, the underlying network is a critical component. Connectivity via a fast, secure, reliable, fiber-based network is what best enables the cloud. Fiber-based networks currently serve many major medical facilities and integrated physicians’ offices and help them to evolve to readily meet new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) requirements and adhere to strict regulations. The network allows data to be moved securely and efficiently from one site to another; and for ubiquitous, easy access to patient records, diagnostic imaging and test results – all to the benefit of the patient.

As the need for fast, secure, reliable, fiber-based networks continues to grow more and more healthcare businesses and organizations are finding that fiber is the optimal connectivity solution.

With the need for detailed information storage, on top of retrieval of patient records and imaging data, increasingly large amounts of bandwidth are required to support the needs of healthcare organizations. With that, healthcare IT professionals are finding it quite challenging to meet these demands while balancing costs, meeting regulations and providing the highest level of care.

Fiber is by far the best solution to meet these challenges. Optical fiber, hundreds of times faster than DSL, cable or wireless systems, offers a platform of incredible speed and virtually unlimited bandwidth capable of carrying vast amounts of data. Optical fibers are each as thin as hair, but can carry enormous quantities of critical information from place to place. Optical fibers are low-cost and play an integral role in the rapid growth of the healthcare industry by ensuring faster, more reliable and secure connectivity.

The savviest healthcare IT professionals are relying on fiber’s dependable connectivity to reduce costs, improve care, and future-proof their operations.