The healthcare industry has traditionally depended on paperwork and various fragmented departments have been working in silos. This industry is now changing and learning from other industries about modernizing its ways of functioning by moving to a digital platform and becoming more patient-centric. Cloud computing is helping to reform the healthcare sector and paving the way for a more collaborative approach towards patient care. Recent years have seen many big industry players, such as Accenture, Microsoft, and Amazon, and others launch their cloud-based solutions, which provide the infrastructure for hospitals, payers, providers, and other healthcare institutions (administrative, research, and clinical) to adopt cloud computing services at reasonable costs. Cloud computing has now become a key technology requirement of the healthcare industry for both healthcare providers and patients.
According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the global healthcare cloud computing market is expected to reach $9.48 Billion by 2020!
But why is cloud computing so crucial in today’s healthcare scenario?

Large Storage

Physicians who conduct research, especially in areas of cancer research and genomics, typically need to store and distribute clinical data that runs into hundreds of terabytes. Clinicians who work with medical imaging, digital pathology, radiology, and other such areas also deal with very high volumes of diverse biological data sets that often require integration with other data types for analysis. Many of the research laboratories and hospitals do not have the storage space to manage and process this growing volume of data. Such huge volumes of data can be stored at a centralized location on the cloud and shared cost-effectively and safely.

Improved Collaboration

According to the Journal of American Medicine, up to 35 percent of patient cases are not diagnosed correctly because important records and images are not available to healthcare providers at the right time. Cloud-based solutions can help in improving the collaboration across various healthcare stakeholders and help, say, radiologists and other physicians to gain access to patient records faster resulting in better patient care. Having crucial patient information available on one platform helps providers provide quicker patient outcomes while reducing costs.
Owing changes in HIPAA compliance, there is a need for increased collaboration among hospitals and insurance providers to process claims and medical reimbursements faster. This has resulted in the adoption of electronic medical record (EMR) systems within the industry. Most of the EMRs are now cloud-based.

Scalability

Cloud-based applications can easily be scaled up or down to manage the ever-growing volumes of patient data. From a development perspective, these applications can be updated centrally and managed easily. The hospitals or healthcare organizations do not need to worry about procuring additional storage hardware and software with data increase. Most of the cloud providers offer autoscaling feature which allows them to access additional capacity within a matter of few minutes.

Improved Security

When sensitive patient data is stored and shared in a non-secured environment, there is always a risk of losing sensitive information or unauthorized access to confidential data. The other concern relates to meeting HIPAA compliance and keeping patient health information protected. Cloud computing addresses these concerns by securely sharing data between different parties through encryption and tokenization of data at different stages of processing. The cloud providers maintain a very high level of security standards.

Improved Patient- Doctor Interaction

Cloud-based solutions help doctors stay connected with their patients. Expectations are that virtual care or telemedicine will be on the rise in the coming years as most of the routine doctor visits will not require face-to-face interactions. Using cloud-based solutions, healthcare providers are empowering patients to monitor their own health, and store their own health records. For example, a health data company that provides diabetes care services is using cloud-based applications to empower its users to manage their own glucose data.

Lower Costs

When patient records are stored in the cloud, it becomes easier for physicians and other providers to retrieve and use that data leading to lower costs of treatment. With cloud computing, healthcare organizations need not invest in real estate, purchasing hardware and creating data centers. Instead, they can leverage pay-per-use model provided by cloud service providers and rather focus on providing good quality healthcare.

Real-Time Access to Records

With patient data on the cloud, patients and healthcare professionals have real-time access to records using connected devices. This helps healthcare professionals take prompt action wherever required and allows healthcare organizations to embrace a consumer-driven approach to care.
Cloud-based computing is gaining popularity with healthcare providers and patients alike due to its flexibility and easy access to information. Cloud-based solutions are cost-effective, scalable on demand, have improved security, maintain the confidentiality of sensitive patient information, and improve collaboration. In the coming years, more and more healthcare providers will embrace cloud computing to harness its benefits.<!– 1527935609589 –>