How Cloud Adoption Can Build Smart Healthcare Systems
In the wake of the 2020 global pandemic, healthcare institutions have increased their investment in cloud technologies. The global healthcare cloud computing market is expected to reach $25.54 billion by 2025. According to a leading cloud services provider survey, 46% of organizations said they had increased their hybrid cloud investments following the COVID-19 pandemic. In comparison, 47% have increased their use of public cloud investment to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.
It is no surprise to find the healthcare industry increasing its dependence on technology. The use of cloud technologies in smart healthcare is a phenomenon that has been around for a while. It has been increasing over the last decade. Industry trends like telemedicine, medical apps, online doctor’s appointment, and wearable medical devices have been many years in the making.
How is cloud adoption building smart healthcare systems? Here are some benefits and challenges of cloud adoption in the healthcare industry:
Benefits of Cloud Adoption in the Healthcare Sector
As we find an increasing number of healthcare institutions adopting cloud computing technologies to transform their operations, here are some of its significant benefits:
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Medical Data Sharing and Collaboration
With a cloud platform, healthcare establishments can easily share medical and patient-related information among stakeholders like doctors, service staff, and consultants. For instance, medical experts can now remotely access medical records and patient information anytime.
Cloud implementation is also facilitating remote diagnosis and virtual conferencing among medical professionals. Cloud-powered telehealth is reducing the existing workload in hospitals and is controlling infection spread through remote technologies.
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Patient Data Security and Regulatory Compliance
The growing volumes of patient medical records and confidential data make healthcare systems a target for cyberattacks and data breaches. Cloud service providers are deploying specialized techniques for maintaining security protocols, including data encryption, access controls, network firewalls, etc., to safeguard patients’ personal health records (PHR).
With the emergence of industry regulations such as HIPAA, HITECH, GDPR, etc., healthcare institutions need to comply with strict data security standards around patient health information. Cloud platforms enable better cyber security and compliance compared to the on-premises data centers maintained by healthcare facilities.
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Better Cost Efficiency
Among other benefits, cost efficiency is one of the more significant leverages of cloud technologies in the healthcare domain. With its “pay-as-you-go” model, healthcare organizations can optimize their expenses and only pay for the services that they use. Besides, hospitals running on tight budgets can save funds otherwise spent on expensive storage infrastructure and processing power.
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Enhanced Patient Experience
Cloud migration is also transforming the patient experience and creating smart healthcare systems. Tech-enabled services like telemedicine and patient portals are empowering both doctors and patients. For instance, patients can book their next checkup or doctor’s appointment and share their latest test results with medical specialists in a hassle-free manner.
Despite the numerous benefits, cloud adoption in healthcare has its share of challenges. Let’s discuss them next.
Cloud Adoption Challenges Faced by Healthcare Industry
Despite their push towards digital transformation, healthcare organizations continue to need help with large-scale cloud adoption. According to a Presido survey, 52% of healthcare executives cited “compliance” as their leading reason for adopting the cloud. This was followed by “agility and innovation,” as 46% of the respondents noted.
In its survey on cloud index, Nutanix found that the multi-cloud architecture is the way forward for healthcare organizations. According to this survey report, a multi-cloud environment gives the healthcare industry the necessary “flexibility to meet their diverse needs.” Organizations are concerned about data privacy and non-compliance issues among the leading challenges with multi-cloud adoption, while data security concerns continue to influence cloud deployment decisions. Additional challenges include cost management, data integration across cloud platforms, and application mobility.
Besides data security concerns, there are further technical issues like limited resources, data bottlenecks, and data blocking in the healthcare sector. For instance, cloud infrastructure providers may offer healthcare firms limited interoperability to migrate their data to another provider. More data bandwidth can also hamper biomedical laboratories from uploading (or downloading) large volumes of real-time data.
Next, let us discuss how Ellicium’s Cloud Data services can help healthcare organizations overcome cloud adoption challenges.
How Ellicium’s Cloud Data Services Can Help
At Ellicium, we offer a range of cloud data services, including cloud roadmap advisory, cloud data engineering, cloud data analytics DevOps services and legacy systems modernization with our team’s expertise in cloud architecture and administration.
Here are some ways Ellicium’s cloud data services can help you implement a smart healthcare system:
- Recommend a customized roadmap for your cloud infrastructure based on your existing IT system.
- Procure the right cloud services and leverage them to build effective cloud solutions.
- Integrate on-premises and cloud resources to develop an efficient hybrid cloud solution.
- Manage your cloud environment after deployment.
- Enable continuous improvement of your cloud deployment.
Here is how you can benefit from our cloud data service offerings:
- Seamless access to our expertise in cloud technologies, including AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure
- Higher cost savings due to the lower total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Improved data security and governance in compliance with industry regulations
- Improved business flexibility and scalability with a wide range of services
Conclusion
Cloud-powered solutions can enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the global healthcare industry. Cloud computing in healthcare facilitates use cases like on-demand telehealth, augmented and virtual reality, and IoT-enabled medical services.
At Ellicium Solutions, we believe that with the support of the cloud platform, advanced technologies like Big Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can transform the future of the healthcare industry. Read how our customers have benefited from our technology-driven services.
Are you all set to go “smart” in your healthcare services? We can assist you.
Contact us today!