Healthcare companies are using more mixed IT models

Healthcare organisations have accelerated the adoption of mixed IT operating models, and both current and planned implementations already exceed those seen in the general scenario of sectors of activity, according to the results presented by the sixth consecutive edition of a global study promoted by the multi-cloud computing company Nutanix, entitled “Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index Report: Healthcare Industry Findings“.

Whether they are using private data centres, public clouds or a combination of on-premises or hosted private infrastructures, almost three quarters (73%) of healthcare organisations reported using mixed IT models this year, compared to 53% last year. In comparison, 60 per cent of respondents from industries in general reported using more than one IT model, both this year and last year. So, while implementations of mixed IT models in the health sector were seven percentage points below the global average in 2023, they now exceed that level by 13 points.

The aim of the Nutanix survey is to provide an overview of the deployment of corporate cloud systems, IT infrastructures and data management initiatives. This year, interviews were conducted with 1,500 IT and DevOps professionals and platform engineering decision-makers around the world. The respondent base covered various sectors of activity, company sizes and geographical regions (North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and the Asia-Pacific-Japan region). The report is part of a wider series from Nutanix, the Enterprise Cloud Index.

Healthcare organisations intend to increase their use of mixed IT platforms over the next one to three years. We expect to see this group grow from 73 per cent to 89 per cent, according to the study. By comparison, the average response in the general sample of areas of activity was 72 per cent over the same period, 17 percentage points less than in the healthcare sector.

Hybrid multicloud

The hybrid multi-cloud model, defined by the study as comprising private infrastructures with two or more public cloud platforms, is expected to experience the greatest growth in the healthcare sector, as well as among companies in other sectors of activity participating in the study. This model grew by 10 percentage points, from 6% in 2023 to 16% in 2024, and should become the predominant IT model in healthcare organisations in the next one to three years, followed by mixed public clouds (without private infrastructure).

This scenario will come about at the expense of less dependence on data centres and private clouds, hybrid clouds (private infrastructure plus a single public cloud platform) and single public cloud models, explains the study. In figures, the predicted leap will be almost fourfold in the healthcare sector, reaching 61 per cent penetration of hybrid multi-cloud use by 2027, while other sectors of activity should reach 35 per cent in the same period, up from the current level of 15 per cent.

Investment and security criteria

When asked about the most important factors guiding IT infrastructure purchasing decisions, healthcare professionals most frequently cited the ability to work with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the flexibility to move workloads between private and public cloud infrastructures – 17 per cent ranked each of these factors as a priority. The next criteria were the performance potential of infrastructures (14 per cent) and adaptation to data sovereignty and privacy management (14 per cent).

Almost all respondents (98%) in the healthcare group and 95% overall said they had migrated one or more applications between IT infrastructures in the last 12 months, a move fuelled mainly by changing security-related requirements, either to improve security posture or to better comply with regulatory standards. In addition, the fear of ransomware attacks continues to grow, causing companies to rethink the best way to protect themselves – 90 per cent of respondents in the healthcare sector said they had suffered a ransomware attack in the last three years. Almost half (49 per cent) said it took a few days or a few weeks to fully restore operations after the attack.

Meeting sustainability goals, which tied with security last year as the main reason for moving applications between IT infrastructures, with a 40 per cent share, fell slightly this year. Sustainability now ranks behind considerations such as faster application development, outsourcing and faster data access as reasons for relocating applications.