Health Care Organizations Seeing Increased Audit Requests

During a global pandemic, health care organizations may have believed that they could focus solely on providing health-care services to their customary patient-base, along with those affected by COVID-19. Many of those organizations were surprised to learn that they were also increased targets for software audits by some of the largest software publishers in the world, including Oracle.

Decreasing maintenance fees, shifts to cloud and online software consumption, and tightening IT budgets have caused publishers like Oracle to continue to use their audit practices to generate revenue and steer customers toward new cloud purchases. Although invoking pandemic-related challenges may buy hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers a slight reprieve from a software audit, these providers should remain vigilant about license compliance during these challenging times.

Respondents to an ITAM Forum poll reporting slight to significant increases in audit activity during the pandemic. Added to reduced staffs that are spread much too thin, internal and pro-active software licensing reviews can easily fall by the wayside. Because no one is exempt from Oracle’s audit activity, even while fighting a raging virus, companies need to continue to proactively monitor and address any licensing concerns.

Organizations may not be exempt from audits even if they have shifted their software consumption to the cloud. Many SaaS and cloud-based software license agreements allow publishers to continue to audit software usage, and the audits are frequently less defined and more intrusive than traditional on-premises audits.

If your organization needs assistance with assessing Oracle license compliance, Scott & Scott can help.