Legacy systems and infrastructure have long posed a barrier to digital transformation (DX) in healthcare. As the DX journey started to gradually accelerate, COVID-19 catapulted healthcare into the pandemic-driven chapter of the DX era, necessitating a largely virtual and digital care paradigm. The silver lining is that healthcare IT leaders have come a long way in adapting to the pandemic, mainly because of having curbed once rampant levels of apprehension about making or considering the switch to the cloud. With COVID-19 adding to the barrage of forces driving DX in healthcare, the stage is set, and the cloud will further scale the pandemic response and industry toward the next normal.

IDC spoke with healthcare providers and payers about their experiences with Virtustream Healthcare Cloud. These Virtustream customers reported establishing a more cost-effective, higher-performing, and agile infrastructure platform for many of their most important healthcare applications, including Epic. Overall, they spoke of benefits similar in nature to those achieved by a broader subset of Virtustream cloud customers interviewed by IDC that calculates an average three-year return on investment (ROI) of 343%, while also realizing important value from Virtustream’s expertise with Epic and other healthcare applications.