Verizon is building its new SaaS and hosted services off its acquisition of cloud services provider Terremark and security services provider Cybertrust. Verizon is using two former Terremark data centers in Miami, Fla., and Culpeper, Va.

The new health-care-enabled services are: Colocation, managed hosting, public enterprise cloud and enterprise private clouds.

The Verizon data centers meet HIPAA security controls as well as other security requirements, according to Dr. Peter Tippett, chief medical officer and vice president of Verizon's health IT practice. Not only do the facilities meet HIPAA's physical security standards, Tippett said, but they comply with policy standards, meaning employees are trained in handling sensitive patient data.

The healthcare industry is notoriously wary of using third-party technology providers for fear of data breaches involving sensitive patient information. For example, only 16.5% of healthcare providers use any public or private clouds, according to research firm IDC. By comparison, 25.9% of financial services companies, another highly sensitive marketplace, use either public or private clouds, according to IDC.

Like a medical billing company that becomes a business associate of a healthcare provider, Verizon said it will sign a (BAA) with its customers showing it is HIPAA compliant.