July…., 2025
The Healthcare industry is adopting cloud-native technologies at a rapid pace, and addressing security concerns, while providing a great patient experience, is a real challenge. Identity has become a pivotal control point in striking that balance. Organizations face the complex challenge of simultaneously safeguarding sensitive data, providing seamless access for both clinicians and patients, and adhering to strict regulatory compliance.
And there’s a lot of it: The healthcare data storage market size is projected to reach around $6.28 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow significantly. Unfortunately, patients and clinicians aren’t the only ones interested in this data. As of mid-2025, there have already been 345 major healthcare data breaches reported, affecting nearly 29.9 million people. While the average cost of a healthcare data breach was $9.77 million in 2024, reports for 2025 indicate that these incidents continue to cost companies in the finance and healthcare sectors between $10 million and $11 million per breach, and for major incidents affecting 50 million records or more, costs can skyrocket to $375 million. Such events not only cost providers monetarily in compliance fines and fixes, but also badly compromise patient trust—making AI-enhanced security strategies more vital than ever.
But trust involves more than just security. Patients are now expecting a seamless experience, and easy access to their care information. Clinicians on the other hand, expect the tools to….work! And organizations need to deliver all of that while controlling costs and meeting strict compliance requirements.
That’s why many are turning to cloud infrastructure like AWS, and modern Identity platforms like Auth0, to strike the right balance between protection, performance, and experience.
The Need for Modern Identity in the Cloud
To truly unlock the potential of the cloud, managing access to users’ sensitive data is critical. Unfortunately, many healthcare providers’ legacy Identity systems simply can’t keep up. Disparate information systems and authorization processes are creating a fragmented, frustrating user experience that also contributes to major security vulnerabilities. This is exacerbated by the volume of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and joint ventures in the healthcare sector; with every new union or collaboration potentially involving complex integrations that can slow productivity. Meanwhile, regulatory systems such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are tightening requirements on protecting patient information, with steep penalties for violations.
Let’s look at how Identity solves the most pressing challenges facing healthcare providers:
Modernizing identity in healthcare by addressing complexity at every layer
Auth0 and AWS together provide a secure, scalable foundation to tackle the sector’s most pressing technical challenges.
Here are five core challenges they help solve:
- Unifying Identity Systems
- Integrate fragmented identity sources—across on-prem, cloud, and partner systems
- Strong, Low-Friction Authentication
- Deploy advanced authentication methods like AMFA, passwordless login, and SSO to secure user access without disrupting clinician or patient workflows.
- Retention and Customer Experience
- Deliver secure and seamless experiences to improve patient satisfaction and build long-term trust.
- Navigating M&A Complications & Compliance
- Accelerate post-merger IT integration while maintaining compliance through scalable identity federation and audit-ready logging.
- Protecting Data
Enforce fine-grained access controls and leverage AWS-native encryption, monitoring, and event-driven automation to safeguard sensitive patient data at scale.
Unifying IT systems
Healthcare’s digital ecosystem is complex and often fragmented. From patient portals, billing systems, Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and countless other applications with all have their specific identity and security models, this silo approach often leads to poor and disjointed user experiences, inefficient workflows, and significant security gaps that expose sensitive patient data to risk.
Unifying identity management across these diverse systems is essential—not just to simplify access for patients and clinicians, but to enforce consistent security policies that protect sensitive health data. Without a centralized, standards-based identity framework, organizations struggle with credential sprawl, inconsistent access controls, and slow IT integration.
Healthcare providers must simultaneously meet stringent regulatory requirements and ensure high availability and performance for critical services. This can be achieved via a strong cloud-native approach that reduces risk, enhances operational efficiency while still keeping the patient and clinicians experience at the core.
Strong, Low-Friction Authentication
How do you ensure robust security without sacrificing the experience is a critical aspect in healthcare, especially when it can impact the speed of care delivery. Auth0, running on AWS’s highly secure and scalable infrastructure, enables healthcare organizations to implement advanced authentication methods that strike this essential balance.
- Adaptive MFA: Adjusts authentication steps based on risk to keep patient access secure yet effortless.
- Passwordless Login: Simplifies access with biometrics and magic links, reducing barriers for patients.
- Single Sign-On (SSO): Lets patients move seamlessly across apps with one easy login.
Continuous Monitoring: Protects patient accounts by detecting and blocking threats without interrupting care.
Navigating M&A Complications & Compliance
Healthcare’s frequent mergers and acquisitions often slow down value creation due to fragmented IT systems and limited access to critical data. At the same time, organizations must maintain strict compliance with regulations like HIPAA to avoid costly penalties and reputational damage. A unified identity platform helps seamlessly integrate systems, enforce consistent security policies, and ensure compliance throughout M&A processes—empowering employees with secure, efficient access while protecting patient trust.
Protecting Data
Features like multifactor authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO) strengthen security without compromising the user’s experience. Lifecycle Management ensures access is continually aligned with users’ roles, automatically adjusting permissions as employees join, leave, and move organizations. Meanwhile, passwordless authentication provides an advanced, user-friendly alternative that eliminates the inherent vulnerabilities of traditional passwords.
Complex Use Cases Like Delegated Access
Beyond traditional access management, the healthcare sector is increasingly recognizing the power of delegated access. This capability allows patients to securely grant family members, caregivers, or even specific medical professionals access to their health information or to act on their behalf, such as managing appointments or requesting prescriptions. For clinicians, it means secure, temporary access to patient data can be granted to specialists or external care providers, improving coordination without compromising data integrity. This fosters a more collaborative care environment while ensuring patient autonomy and robust security.
Delivering value into the future: Access and Data Protected with Auth0 and AWS
We have said it a couple of times already in this paper, but in digital healthcare, seamless access to care and ironclad data security are critical. The great partnership we have at Auth0 with AWS helps deliver a comprehensive, cloud-native identity and access management (IAM) solution perfectly suited for this.
As healthcare becomes increasingly digitized, AI is set to play a growing role in identity management. From adaptive security models that learn user behavior to AI-powered bots that streamline patient onboarding, the integration of artificial intelligence with identity platforms like Auth0 and AWS opens the door to a new era of intelligent access. This evolution will empower organizations to not only respond to threats faster but to proactively prevent them—paving the way for smarter, safer, and more personalized care experiences.
By combining Auth0's flexible identity platform with AWS’s secure, compliant infrastructure, healthcare providers gain granular, context-aware access controls. This ensures the right people—patients, clinicians, or administrators—get precise access, crucial for efficient care and safeguarding Protected Health Information (PHI).
This integration builds robust defenses, protecting sensitive data from breaches. The result: trusted, seamless digital experiences that accelerate care delivery without compromising security.
Ready to unlock the power of Auth0 and AWS? Talk to our team and explore how we can transform your identity strategy.