How Cloud Managed Services are Transforming Healthcare Industry

The healthcare industry is one of the most challenging sectors as it is combined with highly sensitive and personalized information. The rising expectations and the reduction in resources are few unrivaled challenges that this industry constantly faces. However, with the advent of cloud computing solutions, these problems could be easily resolved. These solutions changed the way doctors and nurses deliver services in this sector. Even, in this critical situation, where the whole world is going through tough times like COVID-19, the healthcare industry is the only industry that is continuously putting its tremendous support to deliver a better service to patients. 

According to a recent report shared by Frost & Sullivan’s, telehealth adoption has increased by approximately two years due to the COVID-19 crisis. Moreover, the same report predicts that virtual visits market revenue will be more than double for solution vendors in 2020 and nearly double again in 2021. Clearly the usage of improved technologies in the healthcare sector is playing a crucial factor at this time and healthcare centers will continue to use these tools once the crisis subsides. Healthcare is one such industry which is constantly evolving and always in search of smart and innovative healthcare solutions, and cloud computing is one such technology that helps businesses in this sector to outshine. 

Cloud computing has improved everything from developing infrastructure to connect various clinics, trust to manage millions of medical reports of the patients. Cloud computing has been proven beneficial by providing remote access to the patients and hence, broken down the location restriction in healthcare. Many hospitals have already undergone changing their legacy systems to include electronic health records (EHRs), a digital format of paper medical records which was mandated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) and enforced by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). 

In this blog post, we'll discuss how cloud computing solutions are benefitting the healthcare industry.

How does the Healthcare Industry Benefit from Cloud Computing Solutions?

Greater reach, especially during times of disaster

Healthcare professionals play an important role in our lives, especially in case of any disaster. There are times when high-skilled doctors can’t reach the moment and here a doctor with little knowledge in surgery can also control the situation with the help of real-time guidance by the experts. Being able to consult with each other and to send requests for extra man-power or resources helps a lot in making the difference between a life lost or saved, and cloud computing solutions make this possible. 

Better collaboration

Collaboration between doctors, departments, and even institutions are essential to ensure technology projects support the overall medical and business strategies. Collaboration makes the cloud a perfect companion and allows the doctors and nurses to access the data remotely. In any part of the world, healthcare professionals can apply the necessary action by using features like remote conferencing. 

Also Read: Virtual Healthcare - What Does the Future Hold for the Healthcare Industry?

Data backup and recovery

One of the surveys states that as per 60% server respondents, their major reason to move towards cloud is “recovery”. DRaaS, data recovery as a service is a cloud computing model that allows the industry to back up its patient's record whenever the data increases also make it possible to regain access and functionality to their data quickly whenever required.

Improves healthcare and disease control

This evolution in technology lets doctors track and retrieve valuable data in the fight to control the disease. In today’s time, the biggest example is, the World Health Organization that has been able to classify illnesses, their causes, and symptoms into a massive database that encompasses more than 14,000 individual codes. Doctors and patients both are deriving many benefits out of this, as the electronic media record has offered transparency in the health care system. Also, the paperwork has been reduced as the billing and record of medical history can all be done via the electronic system.

Security

Security is the utmost priority in any industry. Data encryption, row-level security, geo-replication, automatic retention, and private networks are the security standard that cloud services follow to ensure that there is no data breach in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance that has laid down rules for protecting the patient's health information. By keeping the records on the cloud, you can keep them secure from network attacks and other threats.

Also Read: How Salesforce Health Cloud Meets HIPAA Compliance Guidelines

Easy to upgrade

The Healthcare Industry needs to update itself with every new technology. It should be well prepared with every new update coming. Although purchasing new hardware or licenses is a bit expensive. Here, cloud service providers upgrade the system automatically whenever it is needed without adding burned on the IT team.

More cost-effective

Installing specific software, hardware, and the server system may cost up to $40,000 excluding the licensee fee or maintenance fees. By reaching out to a proficient cloud computing service provider, businesses can save the cost here, as you just need to pay for storage, applications, and infrastructures you use. Hence end users have found the cloud services as the best choice for the healthcare industry. Everyone has a budget and at a low cost, they want high-quality care. Cloud solutions help you meet both the goals here.

Improved care and efficiency

The improved technology has made the patient’s life safe. The hand-held computers provide the real-time information of the patient’s health record to the experts, thus minimizing the chance of any mis-happening. This just not increases the level of safety but also adds a level to the efficiency that a patient can expect by the healthcare system they approached.

Better storage – lower cost

Hospitals and healthcare centers have too much data to store and cloud computing is just the right choice here. There are various types of cloud solutions, which hospitals and healthcare centers choose as per their requirements. The patient's medical record can easily be saved on the cloud. This helps in the future analysis of the patient. There is a lot of data to manage and not all in-house equipment can store them. Cloud computing allows these centers to store all the data that too without incurring extra cost on physical servers.

Key Takeaways

This transformation of healthcare with the introduction of cloud computing is not temporary, cloud solutions are continuously playing a pivotal role in the entire process of enhancing the patient experience. With so many benefits and planning in place, there is no reason to not opt for cloud computing services. Both the healthcare professionals and patients will cherish the benefits further with cost-saving and improved care. This new reality has transformed technology into a crucial factor and has overcome many of the healthcare challenges. Though still there is a long way to go for cloud computing. The rest all depends on the cloud computing consultants you choose to help your healthcare company dominate the competition and provide the best care to the patients.