Understanding Cloud Computing’s Transformative Influence on Healthcare
As the healthcare sector continues to rely more on technology, the adoption of next-generation technologies becomes increasingly crucial for both providers and patients.
Cloud computing stands out as a prominent trend in today’s healthcare industry. While some may still perceive it as a relatively new concept awaiting validation, leading healthcare providers have successfully employed cloud technologies for over a decade.
According to Marketsandmarkets, with a predicted revenue of $39.4 billion in 2022, the worldwide healthcare cloud computing industry is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.8% from 2022 to $89.4 billion.
In this blog, we will understand the impact of cloud computing in the healthcare industry.
Why are Healthcare Organizations shifting to the Cloud?
Since cloud technology makes healthcare more accessible to millions of patients, healthcare providers embrace it. In the past, a person’s location and lack of resources prevented them from receiving care.
The recent breakthrough had a significant impact on the world. Services are provided from different locations, and patients can communicate with the doctors from their homes.
Pharmacies and other businesses also use this technology to provide patients with affordable therapy and drugs. Other establishments like pharmacies are operating this approach to offer consumers treatment and medicines at a reasonable cost.
Even with these IT solutions, they still have to deal with rising infrastructure expenses, the requirement for processing power, scalability, multi-tenancy, universal access, and growing needs for collaboration.
Impact of Cloud Computing on the Healthcare Industry
The healthcare sector may enhance patient services, share information more readily, increase operational efficiency, and save costs by utilizing cloud computing. It automates backend processes and facilitates the safer and easier sharing of medical records.
1. Integration facilities
In the healthcare sector, integration aims to establish connections between data sources and storage locations. Through cloud technology, patient data becomes readily available for transmission and analysis, facilitating efficient healthcare planning and delivery.
Healthcare practitioners now have convenient access to patient information gathered from various origins, facilitating effective communication with essential parties for prompt prescription and treatment decisions. Moreover, it diminishes geographical barriers among experts, allowing them to assess situations and provide insights without constraints.
2. Cost Effective
Cloud computing focuses on providing computer resources, such as computing power and storage. Healthcare facilities, including hospitals, benefit from this model as they are relieved from upfront costs associated with purchasing servers and hardware.
With cloud storage, the expense is based on actual usage, leading to significant cost savings. Moreover, cloud computing facilitates seamless scalability, a crucial aspect in today’s digital landscape. It offers an optimal environment for scaling operations and implementing substantial upgrades while managing expenses effectively.
It is particularly advantageous in the healthcare sector, where patient data flows continuously through electronic medical records (EMRs), various healthcare applications, and wearable devices.
3. Big data analytics
Healthcare data, whether structured or unstructured, holds significant value, and leveraging the cloud enables the aggregation and analysis of patient data from various sources.
The combination of big data analytics and artificial intelligence on cloud platforms can propel medical research forward by facilitating the processing of vast datasets. This approach enhances the potential for personalized care plans and ensures comprehensive patient information is accessible when prescribing medications. Therefore, cloud-based data analysis is instrumental in accessing relevant patient data and advancing healthcare research.
4. Scalability
Cloud computing makes it possible to rapidly, cheaply, and with significant customization and scalability meet healthcare demands. Investing in physical storage and management is time- and money-consuming.
Cloud services are rapidly scaled up or down to meet an organization’s needs. Pay-as-you-go contracts give you the flexibility of data storage for your immediate needs with cost projections in case you need to increase later.
Healthcare organizations can select the precise cloud platform components they require from the different pricing models and personalize their solutions.
5. Data Ownership
Patients now have control over their health thanks to cloud computing, which also opens up data. It raises patient involvement in health-related decisions and encourages informed decision-making by acting as a vehicle for patient data engagement and education.
Storing data on the cloud makes archiving and retrieving patient records and medical photos easy. Although there are concerns about cloud security, cloud data storage is more dependable.
The higher the system uptime, the lower the data redundancy. The automatic backups and data synchronization across different touchpoints greatly simplify data recovery.
Use Cases of Cloud Computing in the Healthcare Industry
Here are some use cases of cloud computing in the healthcare sector.
1. E-health and telemedicine
Cloud computing is increasingly utilized for electronic healthcare delivery and online medical services. This technology enables medical practitioners to collaborate and share insights on intricate medical matters through platforms like teleradiology and telesurgery.
With the advent of e-health, patients can now access appropriate clinical care from any location globally. Cloud computing plays a significant role in telemedicine initiatives, serving as the backbone of ICT infrastructure to improve interaction and communication between healthcare providers and patients.
2. HIS (Healthcare Information Systems)
Cloud-based management information systems are used in healthcare to enhance patient care, manage human resources, improve querying, and streamline billing and financial processes.
The healthcare business also uses cloud computing to build, test, and deploy these solutions. Cloud computing enables faster, more collaborative development, better integration with other healthcare systems, and cross-platform interoperability.
3. Personal Health Records
Cloud-based management information systems are used in healthcare to enhance patient care, manage human resources, improve querying, and streamline billing and financial processes. The healthcare business also uses cloud computing to build, test, and deploy these solutions.
Cloud computing enables faster, more collaborative development, better integration with other healthcare systems, and cross-platform interoperability.
4. CDSS
CDSS is a sophisticated system that uses a medical professional’s expertise and behavior to guide patient record analysis. This approach uses diagnose and prescribe medications. Cloud computing is utilized to develop solutions that improve health care.
Furthermore, as technology advances, cell phones and fitness trackers can now measure heart rate, diabetes, and blood pressure. Cloud-based technologies can be utilized for efficient real-time diagnosis, allowing patients to share data and receive timely suggestions from physicians.
5. Cloud-Based Digital Libraries
Libraries are valuable assets and sources of information for medical students, practitioners, and researchers. Cloud-based libraries offer significant file storage, query languages, and indexing capabilities.
Medical students and practitioners can keep up with the newest research by accessing material on demand through cloud-based libraries. Furthermore, physicians can gain valuable knowledge in understanding the healthcare sector and improve their work practices.
Real-world examples of Cloud Computing in the Healthcare Industry
Cloud computing, which has become an integral component of healthcare, provides various benefits to businesses operating in this sector. The following are real-life instances of companies that significantly gain from the influential effects of cloud computing on healthcare.
1. Soniphi
Soniphi is the pioneering personal wellness system that relies on resonant frequencies. It utilizes cloud-based healthcare solutions to generate comprehensive well-being analysis reports on patients’ healthcare apps. The cloud infrastructure also enables early detection of diseases, remote patient monitoring, and telehealth consultations.
2. Pfizer
Since 2016, Pfizer, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, has been utilizing cloud computing in medicine to enhance collaboration across all areas of its projects.
Pfizer recently gained attention for its partnership with BioNTech in developing the COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, Pfizer collaborated with AWS to establish cloud-based solutions and focus on enhancing clinical trial testing procedures and distribution processes.
Final Thoughts
As technology advances, custom healthcare software development quickly adopts cloud solutions for handling large quantities of data, enhancing patient care, and streamlining operations. Additionally, cloud computing enables the incorporation of artificial intelligence into the everyday functions of healthcare.
Today, businesses of all sizes are adopting cloud computing for various purposes, such as disaster recovery, data backup, virtual desktops, email, software development, testing, and big data analytics.
