The healthcare industry has been overwhelmed by the number of patients seeking intensive care, leading to inefficient diagnosis.
One key example is the pandemic, when the healthcare industry suffered greatly from system inefficiency.
This is where cloud computing comes into play. Using cloud computing in the healthcare industry was a prime reason the human race survived the pandemic.
This is the primary reason behind a surge in cloud usage for healthcare applications. According to Skyhigh’s “Security Cloud Adoption Report—Healthcare Edition,” public cloud service usage in healthcare applications increased by 25% between 2019 and 2022.
However, there has also been a lack of trust, leading to only 47% of healthcare organizations storing sensitive data on the cloud compared to 61% in other industries.
This begs the question of whether investing in cloud computing in healthcare makes sense.
The answer lies in this article, which focuses on cloud computing in healthcare, its types, benefits, examples, and future prospects. But first, let’s understand cloud computing in healthcare.
What is Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
The healthcare industry deals with crucial patient data processing activities that require scalable infrastructure.
However, it’s not just about scale. It would help if you also made sure the data is secure.
This is where cloud computing allows businesses to scale their infrastructure securely, especially with the latest telemedicine and telehealth use cases.
Cloud computing allows healthcare professionals to communicate with patients quickly and efficiently at scale. It empowers the healthcare industry with AI-based applications not limited to healthcare companies and businesses.
Tech giants like Microsoft plan to invest heavily in collaboration with NVIDIA to develop AI-based healthcare models and algorithms.
Such partnerships between tech giants to boost cloud computing applications for the healthcare industry clearly show how important it is for significant businesses.
In addition, cloud computing allows patients to safely store health information and prescriptions. On the other hand healthcare providers can touch base with patients 24/7 in real-time.
It also offers access to medical records with vitals and insights about patient behavior.
But that’s not all!
Cloud computing has many benefits for the healthcare industry, from low-cost diagnosis to reduced risks of patient data leakages.
What are the Benefits of Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Cloud computing offers on-demand delivery of cloud-based services over the Internet. This means healthcare professionals can connect with patients from any location.
Though this is not all, each cloud computing service, such as a database, Software, service, and analytics, has many benefits for the healthcare industry.
1. Cost-Efficient Healthcare
Healthcare organizations spend heavily on setting up the physical infrastructure and IT staffing. The large amount of patient data they must manage is behind such massive setup and spending.
However, the traditional approach is much more redundant as these organizations scale.
Scaling infrastructure according to a growing patient base can lead to higher costs and security risks for any healthcare organization.
Cloud computing services can reduce the overhead costs of managing, prioritizing, and setting up on-site infrastructure for healthcare businesses.
Cloud computing services come with a pay-as-you-go model. So, healthcare organizations pay only for the resources they use.
This helps them save big on ideal resources they don’t need. Plus, the security of patient data that cloud computing offers becomes crucial when a single data breach can cost up to $10.93 million.
2. Reinforces Security
Healthcare organizations and professionals must access, store, and process large amounts of patient data. This means the security of information becomes paramount.
However, maintaining the security of a massive on-site database and infrastructure can be a daunting task.
Fortunately, cloud computing services help reduce the risk of data theft in the healthcare industry.
They also allow healthcare professionals to ensure compliance with data regulation standards like HIPAA and GDPR.
So, how does cloud computing help ensure compliance?
Cloud computing services like Amazon Web Services(AWS) or Azure have identity and access management(IAM) features.
These features allow healthcare businesses to maintain data access security and ensure compliance. Another crucial benefit of using cloud computing is the ease of interoperability.
3. Easy Interoperability
Cloud computing services help the healthcare industry through advanced data interoperability capabilities.
Such services allow healthcare businesses to quickly ingest, manage, transform, and persist crucial patient data.
Further cloud services provide API-based healthcare data management and virtual data tables for improved interoperability.
Healthcare professionals can leverage cloud-based electronic health records to improve diagnosis efficiency.
When you use cloud-based EHR, the entire operation burden is shifted to the Software as a Service(SaaS) service. This means you will have better resource efficiency.
Plus, API-based capabilities offered by cloud services make it easier for different applications and systems to communicate with one another.
This interoperability capability also helps healthcare professionals maintain a higher availability of patient data at any time or location.
4. Patient Data Ownership
Cloud-based EHRs have transformed how patients track data, access it, and make smarter health decisions.
Patients can easily track their vitals using cloud services and make key health decisions accordingly.
For example, by leveraging cloud-based services, diabetes patients can continuously monitor their sugar levels and decide whether to visit a doctor or hit the gym based on sugar spike data.
Cloud computing services are crucial for the healthcare industry because they can democratize health information and improve patients’ ownership of data.
5. Improves Collaboration
Cloud computing enables healthcare professionals to collaborate effectively through remote access to data and virtual conversations.
Healthcare businesses can leverage cloud services to build custom features that allow surgeons and doctors to have one-on-one video calls during significant surgeries.
Such features improve collaborations, and integrating innovations like AI into these features can enhance operational capability.
Surgeons can collaborate and share critical patient data to ensure that surgery goes smoother and patients get accurate treatment.
You can also leverage cloud services to provide instant access to patient health information for multiple doctors collaborating on a single case.
Further, you can add features for real-time communication through chats for doctors and surgeons based on the cloud.
6. Transform Patient Experience
Cloud computing services can transform the way patients interact with healthcare professionals. The first and most important aspect is the queues that patients have to face.
Most healthcare organizations, including private ones, are often overwhelmed by the number of patients visiting for consultations.
Using cloud services, you can create customized virtual communication features that allow patients to consult remotely.
This allows healthcare professionals to manage their schedules better and provide timely diagnoses for patients.
Cloud-based services can also help patients in emergencies by providing a faster first response to any health emergency.
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Types of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
Cloud computing services you choose for healthcare use cases depend on two significant aspects- deployment and distribution!
1. Cloud Services By Deployment For Healthcare Industry
The deployment model concerns where you can deploy healthcare systems and store data. For example, a public cloud service will have a shared database.
However, public cloud services can be cost-effective. Let’s understand the different types of cloud computing services that you can leverage for your healthcare business.
1.1 Public Cloud
Businesses that need quick access to computing resources without spending too much initially can choose the public cloud model.
The healthcare industry can leverage the public cloud model to scale quickly and ensure agility in introducing innovations.
1.2 Private Cloud
Public cloud services offer cost-effectiveness but lack control. The private cloud model helps by giving healthcare professionals more control over resources and data.
Because the private cloud is hosted in your organizational data center and maintained by your team, it can become costly.
1.3 Hybrid Cloud
This model combines the best public and private cloud services. It allows healthcare businesses to reduce overhead costs and ensure security for sensitive patient data.
Healthcare organizations can store sensitive data in a private cloud, while administrative information can be stored in the public cloud.
1.4 Multi-Cloud
These types of cloud services allow healthcare businesses to leverage models based on types of workloads.
This provides healthcare professionals more flexibility to manage data with multiple options, such as service offerings, geographic locations, and pricing.
2. Cloud Services By Distribution For the Healthcare Industry
When you opt for cloud services based on data distribution, there are multiple options to choose from,
2.1 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
This cloud computing service offers virtualized resources such as servers, storage, and networks. It allows healthcare organizations to scale infrastructure on-demand, leveraging virtual resources.
2.2 Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Such services offer a platform for healthcare companies to develop their apps without managing underlying infrastructure.
2.3 Software as a Service (SaaS)
Cloud service models provide complete Software over the Internet on a subscription basis.
So, healthcare companies don’t need to develop their Software from scratch. “Best part”– the cloud service provider handles everything from updates to infrastructure and maintenance.
So, you can use these cloud service models for healthcare use cases. However, like every other innovation, cloud computing has its set of risks and challenges.
Risks Associated with Cloud Computing in Healthcare
Cloud computing services involve risks when deploying healthcare apps, such as a lack of skills, a restricted ecosystem, resistance to adoption, and security.
1. Lack of Skilled Professionals
The need for more skilled professionals is a significant obstacle to cloud adoption and risks.
According to a report, 72% of midsize companies are struggling with cloud adoption due to a lack of skilled professionals.
This also impacts cloud adoption in the healthcare industry, as there is a lack of skilled professionals who can help customize use cases.
It risks not only the adoption but also the operability of cloud services. You need to make sure cloud services are compatible with existing services, and that is where skilled professionals come into play.
So, finding skilled talents for your cloud-based healthcare operations becomes essential.
2. Restricted Ecosystem
Cloud services have some inherent problems that the healthcare industry can face. The first and most rampant risk is getting locked into one vendor ecosystem.
Many cloud services provide services that may not be interoperable with other systems.
This is a risk for healthcare cloud adoption; plus, if you are planning to leverage multi-cloud, it becomes challenging.
Another major challenge that cloud-based healthcare systems face is the lack of extensibility!
You need enhanced extensibility to keep up with the latest innovations in the market and stay ahead of the competition.
Your cloud-based systems must be able to extend the scaling capabilities to integrated services and innovations.
So, scaling the service should be fine if you integrate IoT services with your healthcare software to track patient vitals in real time.
3. Difficulty in Cloud Adoption
In the healthcare industry or any other, resistance to new technology or innovation within the organization becomes apparent.
This happens primarily due to a need for more awareness and training. The best approach to avoid the risk of such resistance is to conduct effective training sessions within the organization.
Another major obstacle to cloud adoption is the lack of compatibility with cloud services. Yes, most legacy systems have compatibility issues, so you need to consider modernization
The healthcare industry has problems with legacy systems across operations, and modernization becomes crucial for cloud adoption.
4. Cloud Security Challenges
Healthcare organizations must ensure higher cloud security for better data protection and compliance with regulations like HIPAA.
The security risk is evident in most cloud service providers’ shared responsibility mode. This means you need to add security measures and the pre-built features the cloud service offers.
Here are some of the important security tips for cloud-based healthcare applications,
- Deploy encryptions to ensure data protection
- Ensure you have a role-based access policy across the application
- Use web application firewalls to ensure data security
- Leverage IAM in the cloud for data access control
Overcoming these challenges and risks to ensure comprehensive cloud adoption requires strategic planning. This is where observing the healthcare giants that have excelled at cloud adoption becomes important.
Real-World Examples of Cloud Computing in Healthcare
These real-world examples of applying cloud computing in the healthcare industry help you understand strategic planning and execution.
1. GHX
GHX is a cloud-based supply chain network that helps several healthcare organizations worldwide with the automation of supply chain processes.
It uses a SaaS model to streamline pharmaceutical and healthcare companies’ supply chain and logistics operations.
Indigenously developed GHX Data Connect automatically syncs with each patient’s EHR information through API integrations, offering customized solutions for healthcare professionals.
2. Medable
Medable offers a medical-grade platform and facilitates direct-to-patient healthcare services. It allows healthcare professionals to collaborate and provide accurate diagnoses for patients.
Medable uses cloud services to support clinical applications and storage of personal health information for healthcare providers.
3. Pfizer
Pfizer has used cloud services for healthcare applications since 2016. It leverages cloud platforms to manage and monitor drug research processes, which include trial creation, data collection, cleansing, and submissions.
Cloud services streamline the logistics management of the clinical trials that Pfizer conducts for its new drug research.
These are some of the examples of healthcare companies that leverage cloud services. These companies have already adopted the cloud and made their organizations future-ready.
However, if you are still wondering whether cloud computing in healthcare will significantly impact the future of medical treatments, your doubts are misplaced.
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What is the Future of Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
Cloud computing is rapidly changing the way the healthcare industry operates. Scaling operations has become much easier with cloud computing services.
The extent to which the use of cloud computing in the healthcare industry will increase is unfathomable, with an increased focus on innovative AI integrations.
NVIDIA’s investment into Recuinn’s drug discovery empowering their research with generative AI capabilities is a classic example of increasing innovations in the field of e industry.
Recursion pharma Pharmaceuticals custom biological and chemical data to train NVIDIA’s AI models on cloud platforms.
Such collaborations between AI giants, cloud services, and the healthcare industry will increase in the future, fostering innovative research.
It will also enhance the usage of cloud services across healthcare use cases, including intensive care, chronic disease diagnosis, and treatment.
How Can Zennaxx Help Adopt Cloud Computing in Healthcare?
At the cusp of innovative AI integrations and cloud adoptions increasing in the healthcare industry, ignoring this transformation is not an option.
Healthcare professionals and businesses need to understand the risks of planning cloud adoptions.
Healthcare app development service providers like Zennaxx can transform the way you integrate innovations like AI and cloud adoption.
With 100+ years of cloud project experience, Zennaxx has been at the forefront of providing custom solutions leveraging cloud computing in healthcare.
Get an estimate today on how much it will cost to adopt cloud computing in your healthcare system.
