How Public Cloud Is Transforming Healthcare Industry

By reducing costs, enhancing privacy, increasing flexibility and facilitating better health care for patients through collaboration and interoperability, cloud services in the healthcare sector are beneficial for both physicians and patients.

Cloud services in the healthcare sector represent or describe the use of cloud computing through the implementation of remote servers which are accessed using the internet to store, manage, and process healthcare-related data. Cloud services using public or private cloud storage offers the healthcare sector, hospitals, and professionals to access and leverage a network of remote servers to store and process huge volumes of data in a secure environment.

A federal mandate for electronic medical records became effective on January 1st, 2014, and was signed into law as a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It requires all hospitals and healthcare facilities to show the relevant use of electronic medical records for storing information about patient interactions.

The basic goal of cloud services in the healthcare sector is to improve quality, safety & efficiency, healthcare coordination, and to maintain patient privacy and security.

According to a research report, more and more healthcare companies are now focusing and investing in cloud services and this will go up by 56% in 2022. The cloud computing market share in the global healthcare sector is estimated to reach USD 89.4 billion by 2027, up from USD 39.4 billion in 2020.

A public cloud is an IT model that provides on-demand computing services and infrastructure which are managed by third-party providers. Public cloud services offer cloud-based services like Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS) to their clients on a pay-per-use fee or a monthly fee. Such services eliminate the need for setting up expensive infrastructure for users.

Benefits of Public Cloud Services in Healthcare:

• Streamline collaborative patient care - Cloud computing makes it easier for healthcare professionals to store, share and view patients’ records collaboratively. This helps doctors take a holistic view of a patient's past illnesses, diagnosis etc and use this information to engage with the patient in a comprehensive way. Cloud services provide a platform for digital health tracking between medical devices and EHR applications and large volumes of data can be handled in real-time with low latency.
• Remote care delivery - The crucial need for telehealth became apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic and left healthcare provided with legacy infrastructure struggling. Virtual services using the cloud capabilities allowed the healthcare sector and providers to connect with the patients as needed with cloud providers delivering surge capacity almost immediately as needed. Using cloud services extends support to a wide range of platforms and creates more remote care opportunities.
• Reduction in storage costs - On-site data storage requires huge capital outlays and a sizable physical area to house the data centers with additional expenses for its maintenance, upgradation etc. Cloud computing offers scalable hardware and software solutions that are available on the pay-as-you-go method. This helps healthcare providers to reduce the costs of buying and maintaining expensive hardware and software solutions.
• Security - There is a common misconception that cloud computing of cloud services is less secure than alternative methods. By outsourcing data storage to third-party cloud storage services which are HIPAA compliant and continuously investing in security tools and infrastructure, the security of the data is preserved and the privacy of patients is not compromised.
• Enhancing patient safety - By using cloud services, any affiliated healthcare service can access and view patient records. This can help prevent over-prescription or under-prescription of medication. Such collaboration can help the patients and also the healthcare facility from patient complaints.
• Medical research - By leveraging big data and analytics along with cloud computing capabilities, medical researchers can access the huge data computing power for their research purposes. Along with these, the healthcare sector can benefit from machine learning and AI solutions. These technologies are capable of mining big data for analytics to offer new insights and other details.
• Agility - The cloud gives access to a wide range and spectrum of technologies that can be used to innovate faster, and build as per need. Resources like computing power, storage, databases, IoT, machine learning, data lakes etc., can be summoned up as needed. Technologies can be deployed almost immediately, moving from the idea stage to the implementation stage faster than before.

Cloud technology and its applications are vital for the healthcare sector. The Covid-19 pandemic has given an extra thrust to the healthcare sector to actively move from legacy and traditional business models to technology-driven models using cloud platforms. The benefits of leveraging cloud services overweigh the challenges and help healthcare organizations offer and deliver value to patients and their workforce. Cloud computing applications in healthcare are now essential and choosing an experienced software company providing full-stack cloud development services and round-the-clock support is essential.