Which OpenEMR Hosting is Right for Your Practice? AWS or GCP

OpenEMR, open-source electronic medical records become a crucial part of healthcare. Picking the best cloud hosting platform for OpenEMR is a big deal. When it comes to Cloud Hosting for OpenEMR, two mammoth options arise – AWS (Amazon Web Services) and GCP (Google Cloud Platform.

AWS is popular in healthcare with services like virtual machines and databases. While GCP is better for analytics and often more cost-effective for particular needs. So, which one is right for your healthcare practice? If you are confused, this blog post will guide you.

What is OpenEMR?

When speaking of implementing an EMR system, you may have a list of top vendors. OpenEMR takes its place as the most powerful open-source electronic medical records system. It is an Open-source electronic medical records system, a digital chart of patient’s health paper records. 

It typically contains patient information such as demographics, medical history, immunization, diagnosis, lab results, allergies, clinical notes, radiology images, and others.

Using OpenEMR for your healthcare practice, you will experience many advantages that improve productivity:

• Free Open Source
• Lowers Overall Costs
• Improves Patient Care
• Easily Customizable
• Strong Community Support
• Better Billing Efficiency

Related: The Ultimate Guide to OpenEMR Complete Installation 2024

The Importance of Choosing Secure Hosting for OpenEMR

Securing sensitive patient information becomes paramount when it comes to digital healthcare tech. 

Since it deals with managing sensitive patient information, choosing a secure hosting platform for OpenEMR is crucial for ensuring safety.

• A secure hosting platform ensures compliance with HIPAA regulations by implementing security measures.
• It offers security features like data encryption, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems.
• Secure hosting platforms may have disaster recovery plans to ensure loss.
• It also offers data backup to prevent data loss.
• Hosting platforms offer scalable solutions to accommodate your growing needs.

So, it is important to choose a secure platform to host OpenEMR to ensure the safeguarding of critical patient information.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Hosting Platform

While choosing a hosting platform for OpenEMR, it is necessary to consider all the factors. It is essential to ensure meeting your practice needs.

1. Cost and pricing models

While considering an OpenEMR hosting platform, hosting costs can add up and it is important to under each provider’s charges for the services they offer. 

Each (AWS and GCP) offers a different pricing structure that you need to understand correctly to make the right decision. These can significantly impact your overall hosting expenses and estimate the cost based on your needs.

2. Performance and scalability

OpenEMR is a crucial healthcare system for your practice. So, you need to choose the best hosting platform with reliable performance and the ability to scale up and down. 

You have to look at factors like computing power, network speed, and storage performance to ensure OpenEMR deployment runs smoothly. Also, consider options like auto-scaling and load balancing to handle increasing workload and patient volume.

3. Security and Compliance

Healthcare data is highly sensitive and needs to be securely stored and maintained. Ensure, your hosting provider meets the regulations like HIPAA and GDPR like data encryption, access control, auditing, and disaster recovery.

Start by evaluating the compliance certification offered by the hosting platform. Your chosen platform should maintain regulatory compliance and keep patient data secure.

4. Ease of deployment and management

Setting up and managing OpenEMR is complex! Your hosting platform should simplify it. You have to consider how easy it is to deploy, configure, monitor, and maintain OpenEMR on a hosting platform. 

Related: 8 Reasons Why CapMinds is the Best Partner for OpenEMR

AWS (Amazon Web Service) for OpenEMR Hosting

AWS offers cloud hosting for OpenEMR software. You can purchase their cloud hosting based on your clinical needs and host OpenEMR to access. 

A standard OpenEMR edition, HIPAA-eligible, provides a database for OpenEMR software and storage services. There offers comprehensive features that benefit your practice in many ways:

• Backing up patient data
• Orchestrated non-destructive recovery process
• Security measures at rest and during transmission

AWS’s OpenEMR cloud – Standard Edition pricing structure is complex. There are charges for software and infrastructure costs based on your configuration choice. 

Moreover, the usage and costs differ and it will be reflected in AWS monthly billing reports. For each region, the cost of software and infrastructure pricing for AWS hosting services differ.

Let’s say, for example, the cost of infrastructure in the US East is $82/Month. The estimated infrastructure costs are based on the following default deployment configuration and 24/7 usage:

• EC21 x t2.small machines or equivalent
• EBS1 x 10GB General Purpose (SSD)
• RDS1 x db.t2.small RDS Instance

Here are a few advantages of using the AWS Cloud Hosting platform for OpenEMR:

Advantages of Using AWS Cloud Hosting for OpenEMR

1. Scalability 

You can either scale up or down the AWS service based on your needs. This is especially beneficial if you have fluctuating patient volume. During peak hours, you can allocate resources automatically to ensure smooth operation.

2. Security

They offer high-security measures to ensure the safeguarding of your patient data. Additionally, they offer services that can help you to encrypt your patient data at rest and transit.

3. Reduced costs

The best thing is you only pay for the resources you use. There will be no upfront cost for hardware, and you can avoid ongoing maintenance expenses.

4. Disaster recovery

AWS offers backup and disaster recovery solutions. You can automate backups of your OpenEMR data and configure a disaster recovery plan to ensure quick recovery.

5. HIPAA compliance

Finally, they offer various services that can help you meet HIPAA Compliance requirements.

GCP (Google Cloud Platform) for OpenEMR Hosting

GCP (Google Cloud Platform) offers various solutions to run OpenEMR. One is the pre-configured image in the Google Cloud marketplace. 

So, what it means is Miri Infotech, a third-party vendor, offers pre-configured images for OpenEMR in Google Cloud Marketplace. This image includes LAMP Stacks (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) which are required to run OpenEMR.

This is a quick way and get started with OpenEMR on GCP, but it requires some configurations after deployment. Another one is Self-Managed deployment on a computer engine. 

You can deploy OpenEMR on a virtual machine instance in Google’s computer engine. 

While this solution offers more flexibility, it requires more technical expertise to set up and manage the LAMP Stack and OpenEMR.

Speaking of the Pricing factor, GCP offers a price estimation for 30 days and 24 24-hour per day usage.

OpenEMR Usage Fee – USD 7.30/month

Infrastructure Fee:

• VM instance: 2 vCPUs + 7.5 GB memory (n1-standard-2) – USD 69.35/mo
• Solid State Disk: 10GB – USD 0.65/mo
• Sustained use discount − USD 20.80/mo
• Estimated Monthly Fee – USD 56.49/Month

Related: What you can Expect From CapMind’s OpenEMR Customization Service?

The Estimated Monthly Infrastructure Fee estimate may not include all Google Cloud IaaS resources generated or consumed by this product (or the fees payable for such consumption). Miri Infotech may be able to provide a precise monthly estimate of GCP IaaS consumption.

Advantages of using GCP for OpenEMR

1. Reliability

GCP has a high uptime record and geographically distributed data centers. This ensures that your OpenEMR system is readily available to your staff and patients always.

2. Cost-Effectiveness

You are only going to pay for the resources you are using. This can be cost-effective for you compared to traditional hosting options, especially if your usage fluctuates.

3. Easy Management

GCP provides a web-based console and command line tools for managing your infrastructure. This can simplify tasks like provisioning new servers and backing up your data.

Want to Start with Cloud Hosting for OpenEMR? CapMinds is Here to Help

If you want to experience the full potential of OpenEMR, CapMinds is here with a comprehensive solution. 

With over 15 plus years of experience, we handled over 500 clients in OpenEMR customization and integration services. By utilizing our CapMinds service, you can enhance your practice management and improve patient outcomes.

• We offer OpenEMR Customization and integration solutions based on your clinical workflow needs and requirements.
• We will assist you in hosting OpenEMR in both the Cloud hosting platforms.
• By understanding your practice needs, we will optimize the plans to ensure you get the best in cost-effective.
• 24/7 support, ensures we always have your back if any technical issues arise.
• It will be low-cost, and the perfect budget solution for your practice’s long-term future.
• We also provide consultation services for your healthcare practice
• High-speed delivery to ensure fast deployment and ready-to-use of OpenEMR

Get the best technologies and HIPAA-compliant and efficient OpenEMR that can be tailored to fit your practice from CapMinds. 

Our OpenEMR services facilitate a Modern User Interface (UI), customization, production support & training. Also facilitates billing, report & specialty enhancements, clearing house integrations, e-prescription, cloud, and more.

“Get the most experienced, proven, and perfect professional support for your OpenEMR”