Zero Trust for Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Environments in Healthcare: Protecting Patient Engagement Applications

Anjan Gundaboina

Abstract: Owing to the advancement of the digital health transformation, many 'patient engagement applications' or 'Patient Engagement Apps' are being hosted across mixed and multiple cloud systems. In order to create a decentralized and deliverable manner of storing healthcare data, a perimeter disappears from the security system, and patient data is vulnerable. This paper discusses how Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) can be adopted to protect PEAs in those complex environments. While the traditional security concept emphasizes the outer layer of security, Zero Trust overemphasizes verification, division into micro-silos, and the principle of security applied at all network levels. In this paper, the author discusses Zero Trust in multi-cloud and hybrid healthcare settings, especially in data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. It is particularly important to integrate ZTA to meet different regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, and HITECH, which set rigid data protection measures. Based on a suggested comprehensive procedure, this study emulates the application of ZTA in a sample healthcare structure utilizing public clouds such as AWS and Azure and local servers. The finding was that Zero Trust greatly decreases the vulnerability and response time in case of a breach. It can also improve the visibility of data flows, users, and devices and the ability to implement policies needed to support patient-centric healthcare systems. We look at different ZTA models, evaluate each model's performance, and outline how to implement the ZTA to enable secure digital health. Going forward, the ZTA and its components will likely use AI and further integrate with the blockchain for auditing purposes involving tamper-proof logging. By the end of this writing, it can now be asserted that to protect PEAs and reaffirm the patients' trust in their providers, Zero Trust has become necessary instead of being a luxury.

Keywords: Zero Trust Architecture, Patient Engagement Applications, Multi-Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, HIPAA Compliance, Cybersecurity, Micro-Segmentation, IAM