Here you are going to learn about the main benefits of cloud computing in healthcare as well as some disadvantages, and how to make the best of it for your business growth.
Migrating to the cloud in any Healthcare institution is a big step that is often accompanied by doubts. We will help you develop a deeper understanding of cloud computing in Healthcare so that you can decide if to adopt it in your business or maybe not yet.
Let’s begin with some numbers. Its global market size is estimated at more than 25 billion USD before 2024, and no wonder the increasing growth pace is fueled by Covid-19. According to The Enterprise Cloud Index Report, 34% of respondents said they have taken up hybrid cloud technology straightly affected by our global pandemic reality.
It is not the first year that the cloud has been used in the industry, but in the beginning, it was a very slow and challenging process. The situation has radically changed recently, together with innovative technologies, people’s expectations grew bigger, and the Covid pandemic, of course, added a lot.
From being an option in healthcare, the cloud services moved to a must-do, so the question you have to answer for yourself is not whether you need it or not, but whether your business is ready for cloud implementation and proper functioning.
The main advantages
- Working together
Cloud computing speeds up medical study, patient care, donor searching processes, and more. Access to different kinds of medical data becomes easier for healthcare institutions, therefore collaboration between medical professionals is much faster and more effective.
- Higher quality of service
Experts complain that the life sciences like genetics, biochemistry, etc, and the healthcare industry itself pay more attention to industry needs instead of focusing on patients’ interests properly. Cloud computing is able to fix this issue. Thanks to the cloud services, the visibility for clients is so much better, and the whole process is covered: from the first step of fixing the doctor’s visit to getting the info on insurance as well as comfortable access to their private health data.
- Predict and prevent
With the help of cloud computing for the healthcare industry, you can envision the potential illness analyzing someone’s lifestyle, as well as noticing hints of dangerous illness as early as possible. Big data collecting and getting advantage of AI, ML, and other intelligent tech data science lead to important discoveries and precious outcomes. Another example is infectious diseases, scientists can foresee their epidemic spread and do their best to apply preventive measures.
- Better medical results
No doubt that cloud solutions for healthcare are making everything better when dealing with severe diseases like AIDS, cancer, different kinds of sclerosis, and more. The main goal here is to lessen the amount of lethal cases, and also to decrease disease complications risks as much as possible. Big data study tools enable gathering patients’ health information on various cure plans and do the trends and patterns investigations in order to choose the best ones, those that are most effective. What is even more important, medical experts with the help of big data and healthcare prognostic tools, are able to foresee further effects of maladies as well as their curing plans.
- Smooth and clean hospital workflow
Thanks to the cloud for healthcare, medical institutions’ processes get more accurate and faster, it saves human resources greatly, lowers budget, and reaches better efficiency at the same time. This way customers benefit with much security and precision.
No Fault Found events (NFF), for instance, for preventive care. Medical institutions can experience the steady undisturbed functioning of medical technology and equipment with the amount of NFF as low as possible.
- Benefits for the budget
Healthcare and cloud computing combination gives a very nice adaptability and affability in pricing. Your money goes only for the computing tools you use. No need for keeping the idle systems and property. Saying good-bye to in-house storage is a huge relief for medical companies, as a rule. Moreover, the additional budget savings will definitely come from the lessened apps downtime, better employee efficiency, and let’s not forget the regulative and supervisory lowered expenses.
- Chances to be expanded
Every successful business gets bigger and expands. The ability to reach new customers is crucial here. Cloud services make it costless as you do not have to worry about creating your applications anew. Millions of your users worldwide have the needed support.
Take advantage of cloud computing transformation!
Some disadvantages
Let’s be realistic, and have a look at another side of the coin to have the full picture of cloud computing.
- Security
Security is probably one of the main disadvantages of cloud computing in healthcare with almost 60% of medical institutions reporting this issue. Please choose the cloud provider with a good reputation, the one you can trust blindly. The best at the moment, for example, are Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and more. It is cool to have a safety strategy and adopt the proper controls, both data in transfer and idle must be encrypted, shadow IT has to be warded off, and constant audits is a nice habit. Testing has to be respected exceptionally, as well as software updates on time.
When it comes to security, a lot depends on the users’ culture. Updating passwords, avoiding to click on strange links, having configurations customized are some of the examples on the way to a better safety.
- Accessibility and performance
There is also much concern about data control in case of some technical interruptions. And the access to patients’ data can be limited due to slow internet connection. Testing the network at the initial stage is vital. Multi cloud or hybrid strategies is the way out here. This way your workflow is not relying on a single provider, in case of danger you are able to switch to another one and guarantee the same high quality performance of your healthcare services.
- Imperfect standards
Nowadays healthcare organizations all over the world knock themselves out to assure interoperability. Creating a nicely connected healthcare system is the dream. It will make it possible for medical professionals to share, handle and analyze the data between various apps, devices, and systems. Right now this interoperability can be fulfilled by moving to one EHR platform, investing in ECM software, switching to point-of-care processes, etc.
Conclusion
All in all, it is obvious that the pros are more numerous and more motivating than the cons. Some of them are old, some have only just appeared. Yet, the undeniable fact is that cloud computing has its future.
If you feel you are brave enough to do your business cloud transformation, here at ZenBit, we are glad to become partners. Contact us today!
