Healthcare Cloud Computing: Factors that Drive its Growth

The healthcare industry plays an undeniably critical role in not only our economy but our society as well. And yet, it continues to contend against myriad challenges that take a toll on its productivity, efficiency, and more. These problems were further exacerbated with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.

To deal with all these many challenges, the industry has sought assistance from several modern technologies. However, there is one name that has carved a niche for itself in this sector: Cloud computing. It offers extensive security for the hospital’s data, ensures business continuity, etc.

Don’t worry, the cloud has a lot more to offer, as you will see in the following discussion of benefits and factors that have driven its adoption in the healthcare sector.

#1 Reduction in costs
Sure enough, a hospital’s key goal is to serve its patients to the best of its ability. However, a more practical reality is that a hospital is just another business albeit with a much more sensitive and critical goal to drive it. Anyway, much like any other business in the world, healthcare facilities strive to cut their costs.

Much to a lot of people’s surprise, cloud computing can help in this context as well since it saves such facilities the cost and investment associated with setting up the infrastructure for its IT operations. Why? Because you are essentially paying the cloud service provider to use its infrastructure instead of setting it up on your own.

Not only that, but cloud computing also saves you the costs of maintenance and upkeep of such infrastructure because it is now the vendor’s responsibility to take care of it.

#2 Improved collaborations
Running a healthcare business is a complex endeavor, no matter how small the facility may be. There are countless stakeholders, including doctors, nurses, billing department, insurance claims departments, diagnostics department, etc. Now, for a hospital to run as intended, all its many stakeholders must be in sync, which is possible only via the seamless movement of data between these departments and requisite personnel.

One of the biggest advantages of healthcare cloud computing is precisely that, thus ensuring that all required people and departments are in sync and can successfully collaborate to treat patients effectively.

#3 Telehealth
It is the provision of health-related services, such as medical care, health information services, self-care, patient education, etc. via digital communication and telecommunications technologies, has taken off very well in the recent past. As you can see, it is a resource-intensive effort and one that necessitates round-the-clock access to information and such.
Do you know what can help with precisely that? Cloud computing, of course; makes it easier for telehealth services to be accessed remotely with convenience and ease. It also alleviates hospitals’ workload as patients start to engage with healthcare remotely.

#4 Reduction in time taken to get the diagnosis
The evolution of technology has empowered the world of healthcare with countless advanced skills and mechanisms that have proven to be invaluable to the sector. Bringing such tech together with others, such as the combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing, has a major impact on healthcare companies.

This is especially evident in the ability of healthcare companies to leverage AI and machine learning algorithms through cloud-based solutions and software to accurately and quickly diagnose diseases. AI and ML can provide specific insights to doctors that allow them to arrive at precise conclusions about the diagnosis much more quickly than they would be able to without help from such insightful inputs.

#5 Contact tracing
One of the biggest requirements during the times of corona has been contacted for tracing to prevent the further spread of the virus among people who may have come in contact with an infected person. How does cloud computing help in this context? Well, all that abundance of data collected by healthcare companies in their cloud systems is then channeled into contact tracing operations.

This seamless access to data, then, makes it much easier for authorities to trace patients’ histories and establish necessary links to break the chain of transmission. The interesting bit is that contact tracing abilities can come in handy in the future as well, even after the pandemic is long over. This is yet another reason why healthcare cloud computing is making such waves now.

#6 Better efficiency
Yet another critical benefit achieved via cloud computing in healthcare is the substantial improvements in the efficiency rates. This ability has proven to be especially vital in the face of the pandemic. You see, with the number of cases growing rapidly, it is imperative to tend to patients as quickly as possible.

To safely do that, doctors and other healthcare professionals must be able to access patients’ data, including test reports, treatment history, etc. quickly and whenever needed. This need is seamlessly enabled by cloud computing, thus enabling hospitals to speed up their processes and also improve efficacy.

Why you should take up cloud computing for your healthcare business too
It is clear as day to see that cloud computing has had a deep impact on most industries across the spectrum. This holds for the healthcare sector as well. In addition to helping healthcare companies address not only the run-of-the-mill challenges that plague the sector, but cloud computing has also proven to be a crucial resource as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic started more than a year ago, the healthcare sector has felt an increasingly pressing need for quicker processes, access to extensive patient history, accelerated pace of diagnostics, and so much more. Suffice it to say that the industry has benefited greatly from cloud computing in this context as well. Now, as we move towards the future, healthcare cloud applications are only going to become an even more integral part of the ecosystem.

So, any healthcare facility that intends to keep up with the times while also diligently tending to its patients will be wise to adopt cloud computing at the earliest possible. Do you agree? Or do you think the role of cloud computing in healthcare is being overplayed? Let us know what you think in the comments section.