5 Reasons Why FQHCs Are Leaning Toward Nutanix Healthcare Solutions
FQHCs, or Federally Qualified Health Centers, are clinics or similar facilities that qualify for specific types of reimbursements under Medicare and Medicaid. They serve a valuable role in the community because they provide healthcare to individuals who would otherwise be seriously underserved. Quality healthcare might not be available to these patients without effective FQHCs.
Healthcare costs continue to rise, making FQHCs even more important as a healthcare option for millions of people across the country. To keep up with rising demand, FQHCs must increase their technology to better serve their patients. While every FQHC is unique, many face a lot of the same needs, demands, and struggles.
Thankfully, healthcare IT solutions like Nutanix are providing a way to address FQHC demands in a cost-effective and efficient model.
5 Ways Nutanix Healthcare Modernizes IT Infrastructure for FQHCs
1. Nutanix is a single architecture that is easy to deploy, manage, and scale.
Nutanix provides a hybrid model that includes both a public and private cloud. With the ability to create and maintain a personalized and tailored cloud, it offers both flexibility and security.
Today, FQHCs and other healthcare facilities continue to face unique and unprecedented demands related to the pandemic. They need technology solutions that allow them to provide quality services—most of which depend heavily on an exchange of patient information and care histories. It is also vitally important that FQHCs are poised to offer new services that rely on technology, such as telehealth visits and other remote or virtual services.
Healthcare facilities and management today cannot deal with both the demands of increased pandemic patients and the cumbersome deployment of new technology services.
Nutanix healthcare is easy to implement and manage. It is scalable to fit virtually any size facility. It is also straightforward to manage from one central location, which means that larger facilities with more than one physical location can completely control the system from one main headquarters.
The costs are also manageable. There are lower upfront costs, which is particularly relevant for FQHCs that must plan well in advance for financial investments. There is also a cost savings aspect that Nutanix provides for those who have their own local servers. Instead of upgrading every three to five years, Nutanix will grow with you. Expanded capacity without increased cost means that FQHCs can grow their footprint to accommodate increased demand at virtually any time.
2. Nutanix healthcare has the capabilities and features to support the most common EMR/EHR for FQHCs.
Most medical records today are electronic. Electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (EHR) have saved healthcare facilities significant time and money, but they have also increased technology demands to ensure access and legal compliance.
Storage alone can be a huge issue that a healthcare facility must address to serve patients effectively. FQHCs, in particular, need to develop ways to gather and maintain records and information that can be accessed quickly and efficiently.
Nutanix integrates smoothly with existing EMR/EHR technologies. Nutanix has worked closely with key providers to ensure that this transition is not any more difficult than it needs to be. You do not have to jump through hoops to get your key applications to work correctly.
Nutanix offers support for some of the most widely used EHRs, including Cerner, Epic, MEDITECH, and Fujifilm.
3. Nutanix Dx can effectively support database size growth.
Healthcare data is vital in meeting the numerous demands for information related to insurance, legal compliance, and patient needs. Information necessary for each patient at every appointment is only growing—often involving hundreds of pages of documents for a single hospital stay, for example. Healthcare data is growing exponentially, and Nutanix can support that need to obtain and maintain data quickly and easily.
Nutanix Dx cloud is specifically designed so that you can start small and then linearly grow your EHR by adding application capacity—all with a single click and only when you deem it necessary.
4. Nutanix helps FQHCs meet strict security and legal compliance demands specific to healthcare.
Healthcare security is vitally important, not only for patient safety but also to meet federal and state compliance requirements. Laws like HIPAA, HITECH, PIPEDA, and GDPR require some of the most state-of-the-art technology to ensure compliance. While access to the right people is important, restricting access for security purposes is arguably just as critical. 
According to a survey from Vanson Bourne conducted in 2020, 34% of healthcare organizations were victims of ransomware attacks during the previous year. Of those surveyed, another 41% stated that they expected an attack in the future.
While healthcare-related attacks are actually slightly lower than those in other industries (37%), the information that healthcare facilities have related to patient care and medical histories—and having access to that information on demand—is even more vital compared to other industries. Ultimately, access to the right healthcare information and data can be life or death in some situations.
Nutanix healthcare provides 100% protection against ransomware attacks via full data replication. Instead of paying to get data back, like the roughly 34% of healthcare facilities who were ransomware attack victims in Vanson Bourne’s survey, FQHCs can simply turn to Nutanix to access their data. Ransomware attack victims that paid to get their information back often only saw about 65% of that information—which would not be an issue for those utilizing Nutanix.
Security for healthcare organizations, including FQHCs, needs to be clear and demonstrable. Any other alternative often means sacrificing dollars or failing security assessments and requirements.
5. Nutanix provides remote access necessary to help FQHCs provide effective patient care.
Remote access to information and communication is vital in today’s environment. In the healthcare sector, many care providers can only provide services to patients remotely, making access to data from anywhere even more important.
As an example, at the beginning of the pandemic, Nutanix provided Delaware Valley Community Health (DVCH) and other similarly situated FQHCs remote access to internal infrastructures to their workers. This access allowed DVCH and others to function and continue to provide services without compromising the safety of both patients and caregivers. This access was provided with no downtime—they were able to make the switch quickly and effectively without sacrificing care or security. Read the full case study.
Comport, a recognized Nutanix Partner, has 30+ years of experience equipping FQHCs with technology upgrades such as desktop as a service and VDI hosting. Nutanix infrastructure for healthcare simplifies life and work for FQHCs. Get started with optimizing your FQHC infrastructure by requesting a Cloud Readiness Assessment from Comport. A Cloud Readiness Assessment provides you with:
- A SWOT analysis of your current IT infrastructure
- Your current state of IT against key compliance and regulatory issues
- Recommendations for a cloud adoption strategy
The time for digital transformation is now—and Nutanix healthcare is flexible enough to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s growth. Request a Cloud Readiness Assessment today.
Author: Bill Flatley, Field CTO for Healthcare
Bill is responsible for technical strategies and recommendations for Comport’s Healthcare clients. His extensive experience includes four healthcare systems in leadership roles supporting Clinical Applications, Digital Health, and Office of the CIO as the primary liaison between IT and the business.
