Healthcare organizations are choosing Microsoft for the cloud because of its stability, its advancement in recent years and their familiarity with the company, according to an Aug. 25 KLAS Research report.
The eight provider and payer groups surveyed all use Microsoft's software-as-service solutions, while some also employ its infrastructure- and platform-as-a-services, for tasks including care coordination, clinical and genomics analytics, and digital health platforms (such as a COVID-19 vaccine registration app). None of them have shifted their entire IT infrastructure to the Microsoft cloud, but one migrated its acute care EHR.
The respondents — almost two-thirds of which have multiple cloud platforms — said Microsoft's product capabilities aren't oversold and its cloud solutions are stable and have progressed in recent years. Many opted for Microsoft because of their existing knowledge of and experience with the tech giant.
However, the company got lower ratings on delivering new technology and its track record of keeping promises.
The report called Amazon Web Services a "formidable competitor" as three-fourths of respondents either strongly considered Amazon or (in the case of one) use it as a secondary cloud. Fewer of them considered Google, though three use it as a second cloud provider. However, the researchers note that Google's cloud platform has matured in the three years since these organizations made their selections.
KLAS published similar research on Amazon Web Services in June and plans to release one soon analyzing Google Cloud. KLAS said this study didn't specifically look at Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, which the company rolled out in October 2021.