The healthcare industry is racing against time to enhance patient care while rigorously managing ever-increasing and intricate demands. The recent COVID-19 pandemic revolutionized the healthcare industry in the technology landscape including proactive patient health monitoring, robotics, and cloud computing.
It would be surprising to recognize that healthcare providers and patients are harnessing the efficiency-driving and life-saving possibilities at the heart of cloud solutions for healthcare.
It provides round-the-clock data access to providers and patients sense a unique vibe of ownership over their health. By leveraging cloud technology from professional cloud-based healthcare platforms, organizations can streamline their crucial workflows.
This article promises to examine the best cloud solutions in the healthcare industry covering all the related aspects in depth. Let’s buckle up to kickstart this journey.
What is Cloud in the Healthcare Industry? A Comprehensive Sketch
According to the Forbes projection of 2024, considering the rising penetration of technology in healthcare, cloud computing for healthcare is expected to expand at a CAGR of 17.4% in the next 10 years. The valuation is expected to touch $280 million.
Putting it straight, cloud computing in healthcare is more about leveraging secure, efficient and scalable cloud infrastructure for flawless data management and operational activities. Have a look at the sleek features.
- Experience robust data accessibility to multiple users from different locations anytime.
- Storage and data migration without the need for local servers or personal devices in the physical location.
- Computational power with storage capacity promises high availability, reduced downtime, and data loss probability.
- Store, process and manage healthcare data even from remote patient monitoring (RPM) systems.
- Achieve democratization of medical data using healthcare cloud technology.
- Time-to-time advancements in cloud storage for healthcare data and interoperability in cloud systems.
- Effective integration of medical IoT (Internet of Things) to ensure smooth healthcare operations.
Different Types of Cloud Deployment Models
Over time, the tide has turned and the healthcare sector has embraced cloud-based solutions to an unprecedented level. Mordor Research expects the cloud solutions healthcare market size is estimated to hit $54.69 billion in 2025. Before you jump to further explore how cloud has changed the healthcare landscape, let’s understand a key term in cloud computing which is deployment. It refers to the end users and how the services are made accessible to them. Explore the key types.
- Public Cloud: A public internet serves as a bridge for traffic transmission and service delivery across a wide assortment of organizations. Some of the examples are Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and AWS.
- Private Based Cloud: A business organization exclusively uses their services. They are maintained on a private network and this model provides extensive security features and control. It seeks more resources to manage the workflow.
- Hybrid Based Cloud: This significant model is the fusion of private and public based clouds. It enables uninterrupted sharing of data and apps between them. Hybrid cloud infrastructure comes with higher scalability, flexibility and better deployment options with control, balancing, and convenience as the top features.
- Community Cloud: This model provides shared infrastructure easily utilized by several organizations with a common set of requirements such as cloud data security compliance. This setup can be managed internally or by hiring third-party services with shared resources and costs.
All these cloud deployment models best align with different demands and preferences. The similar options are available to healthcare facilities for seamless workflow of patient management systems. The key point to remember is the entities of HIPAA compliance. It helps to get a clear picture of who has access to what level and kind of health information. Knowing the difference between these models and what stakeholders can access or not is pivotal to circumvent any sort of negative repercussions.
Top Benefits of Cloud Hosting for Healthcare
Whether you believe it or not, the cloud has become the baseline of the modern healthcare system. It provides a wide assortment of benefits that address the most pressing challenges. By leveraging cloud-based strategies, healthcare facilities can better improve the patient’s outcomes. From proper healthcare analytics, and protecting patient data to patient-centered care, cloud services offer various key benefits essential to understand. Let’s explore the details.
Higher Compatibility and Sharing
It is easier to access data in the cloud from anywhere with the help of the right credentials and permissions. If the patient is away from the medical facility network or primary doctor and needs readily medical assistance, don’t fret. The cloud storage for healthcare data is promptly available to providers through clinical data integration. These insights can be further analyzed for diagnosis and treatment.
Minimum Cost of Healthcare
If you want to experience better patient engagement strategies for population health management at a budget-friendly rate, cloud infrastructure is the best companion. It helps you avoid manual storage of patient data in the form of physical copies as it can be a costly option to maintain. Cloud computing provides healthcare businesses with cost-effective scalability. It easily maintains the records of increasing and decreasing numbers of patients. Don’t worry, it never affects the providers.
Enhanced Privacy and Data Security
The prime benefit of cloud solutions in healthcare is data security. The amount of sensitive data involved in this industry requires a substantial level of security. By leveraging the advanced AI-powered cloud solutions and entities of HIPAA compliance, it is easy to control the threat actors. Adding more, any breach attempt or suspicious activity can proactively alert providers.
Improved Patient Experience
It empowers patients through seamless access to their medical information. The scalable cloud computing provides the best EHR solution improving the overall experience of patients at a healthcare facility. Patients don’t have to wait in the queues for the information or don’t have to make extra visits to obtain their valuable records. They can easily visit a doctor with their test results rather than relying on the doctor to tell them about medical test findings.
Better Decision Making
In healthcare, timely decision-making can make a true difference. Cloud solutions provide disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) in case of any unexpected mishap and data analytics tools for more informed decisions. This data can be cautiously analyzed to trace the patterns and project the health outcomes. This technology can more smoothly process tons of data in the blink of an eye than humans.
Explore Healthcare Cloud Applications
The creative treatment approaches and growing technology capabilities are the result of effective cloud computing in healthcare. Addressing the challenges in value-based healthcare, there are various top-notch cloud-based applications discussed below.Telemedicine
It enables healthcare providers to provide healthcare facilities at the patient’s doorstep remotely regardless of their location. It highly improves their access to care through cloud-based telehealth services, including telesurgery, online consultations, teleradiology and more for streamlined healthcare delivery without in-person visits.Healthcare Information System
Cloud-based HI systems are necessary for streamlining procedures and managing patient records. These systems enable medical facilities to store, operate, and share vast troves of data safely. They also streamline functionalities such as HRM, billing, and more. Cloud in healthcare facilities can ameliorate data accessibility and foster collaboration across various departments.Remote Patient Monitoring
Cloud technology allows healthcare providers to track a patient’s health record in real-time without calling the patient to the medical facility. The IoT-based devices easily collect information and transmit it to cloud based servers. Medical experts can easily access this valuable data to monitor health conditions for timely interventions.Why Digital Transformation is Slow in Healthcare
Despite the exponential growth and promising benefits of cloud computing in healthcare, implementation has not picked up the same pace as expected. The sporadic challenges are the result of fixing the gap between existing methods, operational workflows and available options. Some of the critical roadblocks are listed below.
- Incorrect execution
- Lack of experts
- Ineffective change management
- A variety of security risks
- Misunderstanding of capabilities
- Availability disruptions
What is the Tech-Stack for EHR Development?
Sometimes large enterprises sitting on a high horse often neglect that the success of EHR systems is based on a couple of key factors. One is the set of features and the other is the resources to achieve them. The tech stack walks you through the key aspects that can surely help you trace ‘’how to proactively build EHR software.’’ Here is the list of techs strategically while adhering to Health Level Seven International (HL7) protocols. Here is the ideal team and toolkit for seamless EHR system development.- Web developers – frontend and backend developers
- Android EHR developer
- iOS EHR system developer
- Quality assurance experts
- Project manager
Steps to Get the Right Cloud in Healthcare
If the healthcare organization has decided to implement cloud technology, it transforms the workflows and processes. Don’t panic. This change can be significant but every change can be managed with the right strength and strategy for anticipated results. A glimpse of a best practice is available below.
- Conduct risk assessments
- Adhere regulatory compliance
- Emphasize data protection
- Stakeholder’s cloud-based training
- Trusted healthcare IT outsourcing
Get a Helpful Healthcare Cloud Solution
Cloud technology is not a passing trend, it is the future of healthcare with limitless potential to unfold. Implementing cloud computing is indispensable to overcome the advancing security gaps in healthcare and improve service quality. Taking expert opinion and cloud services from a professional IT company can better analyze healthcare opportunities and create patient-centric solutions for productive results.