Symantec Launches Hosted Medical Image Archiving

We think a trend in specialized enterprise cloud storage is well under way. Companies are already buying into it.

Several providers [CommVault, EMC Atmos, i365, Iron Mountain Digital, and a number of others] offer customized cloud storage for financial services companies, utilizing extra security measures and storage redundancies — among other features — in the processes.

Now health care is getting into the act. Iron Mountain Digital came out this week with a version of cloud storage just for health care providers. A few hours later, Symantec announced its own take on this service.

Symantec Health provides secure, Web-based image sharing for non-affiliated hospitals and physicians. The new package consists of two components: Symantec Health Safe [for capacity on-demand storage] and Symantec Health Image Share [for searching, viewing, downloading images].

Since it is targeting health care providers and not corporations like Kaiser and Blue Cross, Symantec is aiming to keep the costs low for this service. Medical images are increasing in volume along with the population, and longer retention periods are being required [thank you, HIPAA], so physical storage costs are growing. The alternative: The cloud, of course.

Go here to hear a podcast by Symantec’s Gary Sevounts, senior director of Symantec Industry Solutions, about how this works.