Putting 'SASE' in healthcare

Healthcare organizations are dependent on extensive networks to facilitate the delivery of critical data and services. These organizations must also adhere to regulatory requirements, safeguard their existing infrastructure, and foster business innovation and growth. Physicians, nurses, administrators, and other healthcare personnel rely on rapid and efficient access to information to provide high-quality patient care. In the contemporary context, this necessitates enabling a mobile workforce to access information wherever they may be, whether in the office, at a patient’s bedside, or at home during late hours. Concurrently, compliance with HIPAA and other privacy regulations mandates the meticulous protection of protected health information. The same IT teams responsible for enabling information access for a mobile workforce are also tasked with the duty of safeguarding that information from unauthorized access.

?Historically, this protection was achieved by firewalling healthcare networks and obstructing external access. However, such measures are now considered insufficient.

?In the past year, numerous healthcare leaders have adopted a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework to facilitate faster and more secure connectivity across their clinics, pharmacies, and hospitals. SASE integrates network and security functions into a single, cloud-native service, ensuring consistent connectivity and security from any location.

Components of SASE

The main components of SASE are advanced SD-WAN and comprehensive cloud-delivered security (Security Service Edge or SSE).

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Use cases of SASE in Healthcare

- Make sure telehealth runs smoothly with super-fast, high-performance connections to the cloud and other online apps.

- Keep everything HIPAA and PCI-DSS compliant, protecting healthcare staff, the network, apps, and patient info from any threats, inside or out.

- Centralize everything for easy monitoring and control, so you can set up new healthcare sites without lifting a finger.

- Ensure healthcare data is delivered securely and efficiently, whether it's going to the cloud, a data center, a pop-up clinic, a hospital, or a home office.

- Guarantee crystal-clear, low-latency voice calls at call centers without any annoying jitters or lost packets.

- Pop-up clinics can help serve rural or underserved areas, or even turn large venues into medical facilities for testing and vaccinations.

- Enhance security and performance for IoT devices like MRI machines, infusion pumps, and even smart light bulbs.

- Give clinicians constant access to EMRs and let them share high-res medical images with secure network connections across different cloud environments.

- Ensure reliable, optimized connectivity for remote workers using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

- Securely receive medical data from external devices, third-party systems, and consumer health gadgets and apps.?

Net-Net:

The healthcare sector is high-stakes, and having a solid SASE strategy is a must. Big providers should upgrade their tech with SASE in mind to save time and money in the long run. Smaller providers can also use SASE to simplify tools and easily connect clinics, branch offices, and remote workers.