Cloud Computing in Healthcare: Applications, Types, and Benefits
The COVID era has changed the healthcare industry upside down. From those never-ending waiting lines to get your medical documents to being just one click away, cloud computing has been a drastic shift for the healthcare department.
From high infrastructural costs to affordable cloud storage management, cloud computing for healthcare has been bliss.
Similarly, losing your critical documents due to some damage to 24*7 access, and the robust backup framework, cloud computing in the medical industry served as a powerful weapon in the emergencies of COVID.
Cloud is an attractive solution in healthcare because of its unparalleled convenience and user-friendly framework. Making patient care a lot easier day by day, the cloud offers data security and the fastest access.
Given the applications of cloud computing in healthcare, a CAGR of 14.12% is expected from the healthcare cloud computing market. It is undoubtedly one of the fastest-growing sectors.
Let’s delve deeper into the concept of cloud computing for healthcare to understand the insights a bit better!
Table of Contents
What is Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
What is the role of Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Benefits of Cloud Computing in the Healthcare Industry
Applications of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
Types of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
Risks of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
How to avoid the risks of Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Data and Statistics for Cloud Computing in Healthcare
What is Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Data is the new differentiator now. But, keeping it safe and updated is among the toughest aspects of management.
But, when it comes to cloud-empowered storage, nothing stands in front of it!
Firstly we need to understand what cloud computing is.
It is the practice or says the framework of using a public network of remote servers on the internet to safely store, manage, and process data digitally.
Now, to the main question: What is Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Same as other cloud applications.
Cloud computing in the medical field is the use of remote servers via the internet for the storage, handling, and processing of medical data.
Cloud storage allows healthcare professionals and medical organizations to securely store massive amounts of data on dedicated web servers. Such servers are typically maintained by IT professionals to keep the malfunctioning away.
EMR (Electronic Medical Records) integration into the healthcare industry has embraced cloud-based solutions to securely store as well as manage patient data and make it easily accessible to the patients as well.
With an average CAGR of 15% and migration of their existing data centers to cloud-based solutions, the healthcare industry is evolving through digitalization.
What is the role of Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
The traditional healthcare industry faces hundreds of challenges, ranging from rapidly increasing operational costs, infrastructure costs, strict government compliance requirements, and security issues to real-time information sharing as well as hassle-free communication.
However, the integration of cloud computing in healthcare has dealt with all of the challenges mentioned above in a subtle transformation to smooth healthcare operations.
To summarise the role of cloud computing in the healthcare department, it helps facilitate the latest technology used in healthcare such as electronic medical records, mobile applications, patient portals, IoT devices, as well as big data analytics.
Furthermore, it offers hassle-free scalability, which improves the overall decision-making workflow.
But to delve into how cloud computing helps in healthcare, there are numerous leverages of cloud that the healthcare industry can take advantage of!
Also Read – Top 5 Benefits of Using Cloud Computing Systems in 2021
Benefits of Cloud Computing in the Healthcare Industry
When considering the never-ending list of benefits of Cloud computing in Healthcare, the list is surprising.
But, to gauge the major three benefits of cloud computing in healthcare, let’s keep exploring!
- Cost-effective and secured storage
- Unparalleled convenience paved through Patient ownership
- Effective Collaborations leading to the Development of Telemedicine
Cost-effective and secured storage
Lab tests, insurance claims, electronic medical records, as well as prescriptions of thousands of patients that visit the healthcare center every year, are massively huge.
And managing each of these is highly complicated, time-consuming, and involves unimaginable cost structures.
But, Cloud technology aids in the efficient and affordable handling of data.
When cloud computing provides more storage space, cloud-based analytical tools can make better use of data and transform it into meaningful insights.
EMRs provide storage space that complies with legally mandated security and confidentiality requirements
Unparalleled convenience paved through Patient ownership
Cloud computing centralizes data and empowers patients to manage their own health.
Access to lab test results, health records, as well as doctors’ notes in real-time has offered patients with utmost convenience.
It increases patient involvement in making health-related decisions.
Data recovery has now become effective because backups are streamlined and there is no single point of contact where the data is maintained.
Effective Collaborations leading to the Development of Telemedicine
Telemedicine technologies such as telesurgery, audio/video conferencing, as well as teleradiology, have necessitated the need for healthcare stakeholders to cooperate and communicate.
The use of cloud technologies in healthcare improves collaboration by allowing doctors to share data, review previous consultations, as well as share data.
It helps in saving both parties time and allows for more accurate diagnosis and treatment. Cloud computing can also be used as an information technology infrastructure for telemedicine projects.
Also Read – How does Blockchain Technology help in Business Transformation?
Applications of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
The distinct benefits of cloud-integrated healthcare attract hundreds of healthcare centers.
Here are some unparalleled cloud computing use cases in healthcare when compared to the traditional ones!
Healthcare Information Systems (HIS)
Cloud-based management information systems are used in the healthcare industry to boost patient care, supervise human resources, improve querying facilities, and manage finances.
Cloud computing facilitates rapid, collaborative development, improved system integration with other healthcare systems, as well as cross-platform compatibility, all of which improve HIS efficiency.
Telemedicine
E-health allows patients from all over the world to receive the best clinical care.
Cloud computing can be used to empower telemedicine projects as information and communications technology (ICT) equipment to improve doctor-to-doctor and doctor-to-patient interaction and collaboration.
Drug Discovery
The combination of cloud computing, as well as quantum molecular design, increases the likelihood of drug discovery success while producing faster and more cost-effective results. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) facilitates the highly complex process of discovering new compounds from billions of chemical compositions.
Types of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
There are different models of cloud computing for healthcare. We at Antino provide Cloud Computing Services for both models.
To choose the best fit, one can analyze and weigh the pros and cons of each type. Here’s how types of cloud computing in the medical field are listed:
Risks of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
With all the given advantages of cloud computing, there are a few challenges of cloud computing for healthcare as well.
Here are the risks associated with cloud-enabled healthcare.
Restricted Ecosystem
Cloud computing is a powerful source when it comes to integrating effectiveness and increasing productivity.
But, to make the whole healthcare industry efficient, only cloud integration is not sufficient.
Healthcare centers are expected to integrate Artificial Intelligence, the IoT, and Data Management technologies collectively with cloud computing models to reap the most out of it!
The complexity of migration
Migration from conventional documentation to cloud integration is as difficult as it sounds.
Millions of medical reports, insurance claims, and patient certificates documented traditionally is not a smooth task to be migrated to cloud infrastructure.
Thus, the complexity of migration is massively high. And, training each of the participants about the usage of the framework is also cumbersome.
Security Challenges
Cloud computation necessitates the storage of data on remote servers. But, the loophole of sharing it with inter-institutional participants can be a major source of a leak of private information and reports of patients.
Also Read – How does blockchain technology help organizations when sharing data?
How to avoid the risks of Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Given the numerous pros and cons, it’s not easy to make the final move.
But, there are always some challenges that you can timely avoid to mitigate the associated risks. Hire a Cloud Computing Consultant and you can migrate your business so smoothly.
However, considering these below-mentioned points can help you to great extent in the migration.
Make your objectives clear
The worst mistake one can make is to step in without making the objectives of migration clear.
Whether the decision to migrate was for cost-saving, legal compliance management, enhancing security, or initiating backups, you need to clarify what you want and how you will implement it through cloud computation solutions in healthcare.
Pre-define the framework for migration
Migration to new infrastructure is not at all going to be smooth.
So, don’t even expect it to be.
The best practice to aim for smooth sailing is to define what the objective is and plan every step involved in the framework.
Because of the huge number of participants involved, it is better to lay down a predefined framework with requisites!
Document, measure, and analyze the investments
Enabling cloud computing in the medical field needs proper documentation.
Ensure the framework is getting documented, measured, and analyzed at each phase to check up on and improvise accordingly!
Data and Statistics for Cloud Computing in Healthcare
- 2% Expected CAGR of global healthcare Cloud market towards 2024
- USD 51.4 Billion Estimated size of the North American healthcare cloud market by 2024
- 93% of cloud services in healthcare at a medium-high security risk
- 94 Million Total healthcare records were exposed in the last 12 months
- USD 50 Average cost of an individual health record
- 7% of cloud services in use meet compliance and security norms
- 8 TB of Data, an average health provider uploads to the cloud/month
- 4% of healthcare services support multi-factor authentication
Source: Veritis
Conclusion
Thus, gauging the cloud computing usage in healthcare, the growth areas are indefinable.
Making everything far easier than the conventional times, the future of cloud computing in the medical field is defined to shine brighter in the years ahead.
Cloud computing services pave the way to numerous benefits and choosing the right cloud computing service company like Antino Labs can take you to heights in terms of technical competence.
With an irreplaceable role in healthcare, cloud computing helps overcome numerous conventional challenges including increasing operational costs, infrastructure costs, strict government compliance requirements, real-time information sharing, hassle-free communication, and security issues.
A cloud-empowered healthcare system can be utilized to increase the efficiency of workflows, lower operational costs, provide personalized care, and much more which eventually results in enhanced healthcare services. At the same time, cost-effective and secured storage and Unparalleled convenience paved through Patient ownership are the add-ons!
Yes, the risks involving security challenges, migration complications, and other compliances can be avoided using particular techniques. And, the specified includes appropriate automation, documentation, and standardization of the workflow of cloud computing!
