Information technology continues to play a crucial role in healthcare.
As an early adopter, the healthcare industry has been utilizing information technology solutions for decades. Initially there was little demand for electronic communication between departments or to outside organizations. In many cases these same organizations also share this information with universities and drug manufacturers for use in medical research. As a result of these proliferating uses for health information, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a modern-day healthcare organization to guaranty the information's security and confidentiality. As the number of remote users and mobile workers continues to increase rapidly, there are significant investments being made in remote access networks.