Attorney: Cloud Vendor Contracts Wrought With Pitfalls

Despite the surge by providers to cloud-based electronic health record systems, cloud vendor contracts still are wrought with pitfalls and "threats", according to attorney Steven Fox with Post & Schell, who spoke April 4, on a webinar sponsored by the American Bar Association's Health Law Section.

"All cloud providers are not created equal," he warned.

Fox, whose presentation was based in part on a similar presentation he gave at HIMSS 2014, pointed out that many of the contract terms in vendors' form contracts heavily favor the vendor, and called some, such as an arbitrary cap on damages ridiculous.

"Never accept the vendor's standard form contract as the final word," he warned.