A massive shift has been witnessed in the generation, consumption, storage, and sharing of healthcare data. From conventional storage to digitalization of healthcare data, the industry has come a long way in optimizing its management practices. The widespread option of moving over to cloud computing in healthcare goes far beyond storing data.
Moving over to cloud has proven to be beneficial to patients as well as healthcare providers. Cloud technology has helped hospitals, clinics, etc. reduce operational costs while allowing providers to deliver high quality personalized care. The healthcare sector has evolved with the help of cloud technology. Here are some ways cloud has helped the healthcare industry:
Communication through the Cloud
With a cloud-based phone system, doctors can stay connected. There are many reasons why this type of communication is vital today. When the doctors are connected to each other, the communication is reinstated and they could treat the patients better. Even the hospitals should talk to one another every now and then. Also they should have internal communications within the walls of the hospital. This helps them waste less money in developing various different methods and go with the existing techniques. This enables the reduction of treatment costs, as there is no cost of discovering which is also recovered from the patients.
Integrated and Efficient Patient Care
Managing millions of Electronic Medical Records presents quite a challenge today. Developing infrastructure is working hard to connect the countless trusts, hospitals, surgeries, etc. together through the cloud technology. Cloud computing is changing how doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals deliver quality and cost effective services. Patient care was affected during hard times, when costs need to be cut short. Cloud technology has offered numerous benefits like faster prescription advice for various contemporary medical problems.
Data Analytics
The healthcare sector is expected to grow in unprecedented rate in the following years. Housing the whopping amount of data associated with it will be a big challenge to the IT industries. The most effective solution to this problem seems to be using the cloud technology. Things could be made simple by making sure the data is in the right place so it can be used at the right time across multiple devices. Across one unified network infrastructure, it is impossible to deliver multiple services without cloud.
Streamlined Collaboration
It is said that streamlined communication results in streamlined patient care. This is good because the patients don’t want to be readmitted to the hospital when they could have been taken care of the first time itself. When the whole team is able to communicate efficiently over cloud, readmission of the patient can be avoided. This system allows real time updates which make sure there are no gaps in the treatment. It saves lot of space and money, as there is no need of sending files.
Electronic Records
Doctors feel the lack of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) is a big challenge to improve clinical and financial performance. The interoperability between all the providers and payers is hampered without EMRs. Cloud based EMRs can easily bring healthcare systems together. Cloud based technologies such as Virtual Server or Azure Virtual Desktop can be used to store EMRs carefully in a secured environment. The technology provides a secure private network that is connected to the cloud. Such records have proven to be extremely protective. This also allows online access of medical records, lab reports, test results etc. to the patients. Eventually, the healthcare experience can be improved while people participate more in their treatments.
Security and Mobility
Patient data contains confidential information that doctors must always protect. This is a reason that makes it more important for hospitals and doctors to use the cloud technology. Cloud network had issues in regards to security earlier, but over the years measures have been taken to make it difficult to hack into. Increased levels of security and privacy exist in the cloud now.
Advanced Clinical Research
Sharing data between pharmaceutical giants via cloud will help researchers choose the best subjects. In a recent clinical trial big data revealed desipramine can be used in curing lung cancer. This type of collecting information to find a cure is known as Evidence Based Medicine. It is being used in many healthcare sectors that have now implemented cloud technology.
– Shreevarshita Gupta