BAA Continuity During Migration
HIPAA requires a Business Associate Agreement covering every environment that processes PHI. Migration phases that route PHI through intermediate systems must be covered by BAAs throughout.
Cloud Migration
AWS Cloud Migration for Healthcare
We migrate healthcare organizations to AWS while maintaining HIPAA compliance at every phase — protecting patient data during transit, preserving EHR integrations, and minimizing clinical workflow disruption.
- The current estate is inventoried.
- Assessment models post-migration TCO and a 7R path per workload.
- Rehost moves what should move as-is, with MGN or DMS where they fit.
- Refactor lands what should land on managed services or containers.
- Cutover waits for the agreed window.
- The workload is live on AWS with the roster still attached.
Key Challenges We Solve
EHR System Integration Preservation
Migrating infrastructure while keeping Epic, Cerner, or Allscripts integrations functional requires preserving HL7 FHIR endpoints, HL7 v2 interfaces, and API connections without disruption.
Medical Imaging Data Migration
DICOM archives are petabytes in size and cannot use public internet transfer. Secure, high-throughput migration of imaging data requires AWS DataSync or Snowball with chain-of-custody documentation.
Clinical Availability Requirements
Clinical systems cannot have planned downtime during patient care hours. Migrations must be scheduled around clinical calendars with instant rollback capability if issues arise.
Our Approach
HIPAA Migration Architecture
Migrate into a pre-built HIPAA-compliant AWS landing zone with VPC isolation, KMS encryption, CloudTrail enabled from day one, and BAA in place before any PHI touches AWS.
EHR Integration Bridge
AWS HealthLake and API Gateway serve as integration bridges — maintaining HL7/FHIR endpoint compatibility for connected systems during the migration period without requiring them to reconfigure.
Imaging Data Pipeline
AWS DataSync for online DICOM transfer or AWS Snowball for offline petabyte-scale migration, with integrity verification, chain-of-custody documentation, and automated validation against source checksums.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you maintain HIPAA compliance during a cloud migration?
We migrate into a pre-configured HIPAA-compliant environment rather than migrating first and configuring compliance later. The target environment has encryption, audit logging, and access controls in place before PHI arrives. We also document each migration phase for your HIPAA risk assessment, including the risk analysis required by the HIPAA Security Rule.
How long does a healthcare cloud migration take?
A healthcare organization migrating infrastructure (not EHR systems) typically takes 3-6 months. Application migrations that include EHR integration reconfiguration take 6-12 months. Large medical imaging migrations (100TB+) add 1-3 months for data transfer depending on network bandwidth.
Can you migrate Epic or Cerner to AWS?
Epic and Cerner can run on AWS — both vendors publish AWS-specific infrastructure guidelines. Epic is certified on AWS infrastructure. The migration involves right-sizing instances to Epic's specifications, configuring the storage tier to match Epic's I/O requirements, and maintaining the Chronicle database configuration. We coordinate with your EHR vendor throughout.
Ready to Get Started?
Talk to our AWS experts about aws cloud migration for healthcare.