Ask any entrepreneur about their concerns pertaining to IT, and they’ll most likely come up with scalability, security and performance as top issues. These concerns are on the mind of every decision-maker, no matter whether they belong to healthcare, entertainment, energy, aviation, agriculture, or whichever domain. Being specific to healthcare industry, in the past few years, the staggering number of data breaches has wedged this sector considerably. Besides detrimental security, inefficient, slow computer systems are the major contributors for agitating the growth of the sector. Still, most healthcare systems rely on paper records, and the pieces of information that are now digitalized are not that portable. It, in turn, limits the information sharing and collaboration between patients and doctors. The risk associated with healthcare data and performance issues has exponentially grown high. That’s why a great pressure is on clinics, hospitals, and doctors’ offices to move from heaps of paper records to quickly accessible, secured electronic health records. Nonetheless, discovery of a right platform that can create the biggest impact has become an indispensable need. This is where cloud-based solutions come handy. Although the government has mandated healthcare providers to adopt cloud solutions but there are still many who lag behind.

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Cloud Saves Time: For every business – time is a valuable factor. It is of immense importance that doctors gain quick access to accurate and updated patient data, so that they can prescribe medications accordingly and timely. Cloud supports large data sets for electronic health records (EHR), including genomic data offloading, radiology and images, augmenting the ability to analyze and track information, so that the treatment, cost and performance data can be examined and acted upon. Doctors can gain access to a database of information and monitor new diseases as well.  

Besides, cloud supports a host of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, which will allow doctors to access patients detail in remote areas. For example, a digital adapter can be integrated with a stethoscope to amplify the heartbeats of the patient. Then, this data can be send to the cloud. For your information, many physicians in Haiti are making use of such a tool and sending this data to cloud so that it can be easily accessed by cardiologists in the United States.

Cloud Simplifies IT: There is no denying the fact that running a behemoth health care company is resource-intensive exercise that demands technical expertise to manage, maintain and monitor the patients’ data. By moving your healthcare data to cloud, responsibilities related to factors, including technology upgrades, staffing and other aspects are transferred to a cloud service provider. This not only simplifies the management of IT resources, but also cuts back initial capital outlays, as cloud employs flexible, pay-per-use billing strategy. 

Cloud Provides Scalable Computing Resources: Cloud is a cluster of network servers that leverage hospitals, insurance companies, medical practitioners, and research facilities to tap on improved computing resources. It provides on-demand access to large pool of computing resources and storage alternatives, which is like an ‘out of the way’ thing for traditional healthcare business environment.

Cloud Provides Security: Over the past few decades, this sector has got extremely exposed to data theft, leading to unbearable losses. The risk of electronic data is getting intensified, demanding strict security and compliance requirements, because if this secretive data falls in the hand of wrong people, it can be devastating for both the patient and the company. According to studies conducted by leading research firms, medical records are the most valued targets of hackers.  HIPAA compliant cloud service providers (reviewed by third-party) employ cutting-edge technologies including firewall and other high-end encryption techniques to keep vulnerabilities at bay.

Cloud Ensures Fastest Data Recovery: One of the major difficulties in storing data on internal servers is that all of the information may get annihilated, if natural disasters hits your company’s building. However, if this healthcare data is moved to cloud, there’s no room for worry. The data stored on cloud is backed up on multiple servers, which means if a natural disaster or component failure occurs the data can be still retrieved.  Moreover, most of the cloud service providers own and manage numerous data centers across the globe, so even if one facility gets affected by the turbulence, your information can be recovered easily..

There are increasing numbers of cloud providers that work in specific healthcare areas and provide consumer-centric technologies that helps in integrating medical data and consumer device data stored on fitness trackers. The best thing is this information can be gathered, processed and examined by healthcare services providers, wellness program providers, and pharmaceutical companies to act upon it.

Conclusion

Healthcare is an essential pillar of any country. Definitely, cloud computing can enhance the experience of every individual and technology associated with the healthcare industry. Moreover, digitization has enabled cloud computing to evolve and be used in multiple places including the healthcare industry. Cloud computing helps in scaling computing resources, improves security, and ensures fast data recovery.