International health IT policy currently supports the move towards cloud computing. Governments, industry leaders and advocacy groups are keen to build confidence among health professionals to adopt cloud-based solutions in healthcare. However, the potential benefits from cloud computing need to be evaluated against the risks. This research is a comparative study on U.S and EU health professionals´ views on the potential benefits and risks from cloud computing. The results from surveying healthcare organizations in the U.S and five EU countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) identify differences across countries in health IT policy, incentives for adoption, privacy and security, and trust in third party suppliers. Our findings show that privacy and security are important issus for healthcare organizations, yet differences exist between the U.S and across EU Member States in how these concepts are viewed. U.S laws and EU Directives on data protection are more advanced than other international regulatory systems. Our study provides insights on cross-jurisdictional approaches to personal data and privacy, regulations and rules on health data export, how countries interpret and implement different data protection regulations and rules, and the practical implementation of regulatory rules using a comparative research method. \
