Digital solutions are pushing the healthcare industry forward. Both patient care and business operations are experiencing dramatic changes. The tendency will continue to affect practitioners, administrative staff, and IT departments. The Gartner survey reveals that 92% of healthcare providers plan to implement distributed cloud technology by 2025. The same figure is related to artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Focus on end-users
Digital evolution leads to a more complete integration of IT into healthcare and administrative issues. To support and engage in digital transformations, IT experts should focus more on users’ demands. That is because software should meet the requirements of the end users, who are clinicians and business staff. New software possibilities should enhance the work of medical experts, streamlining their workflows.
To achieve those goals, IT departments in healthcare rely on cloud solutions, data analytics tools, and automation. Software providers also adapt their solutions to meet modern technological standards. Thus, the Belitsoft development experts helped a healthcare technology company convert .NET Framework to .NET Core. The company aimed to expand its customer network. The initial product was built on .NET Framework. However, it became inconvenient to customize the solution for each new client. With a modernized .NET Core product, the business received cross-platform capabilities and the possibility to cater to a broader customer base.
Micro steps for the long run
Dmitry Baraishuk, the Chief Innovation Officer and expert with 20 years of experience in HealthTech, believes that companies should migrate their systems to the cloud in small steps. It is a smart solution for two reasons. First, it is easier to implement and assess the initial results. Second, micro-change management requires fewer resources and allows businesses to save costs.
At the same time, such an approach should not mislead businesses from their general strategy to short-term IT tasks. As McKinsey reported, many healthcare providers and companies have not achieved the full potential of cloud technology because they have focused more on solving minor issues in their internal IT departments. Each cloud initiative should lead to a certain business value, not just solve an IT demand.
Cloud computing use cases
At the initial stage of implementing cloud computing in healthcare, it is possible to invest in one of the following categories. Therefore, businesses prioritize their investments, receive visible results, and can assess the selected strategy.
Personalized customer experience
Cloud-based electronic health records systems (EHRs) make patients’ data reachable from any medical center or hospital. More sophisticated systems allow patients to access and control their medical data, such as lab results, scheduled appointments, filled-in prescriptions, and charges. Those possibilities establish a patient-centric approach to treatment.
Medical collaboration
Cloud software allows physicians to make data-driven decisions. Medical experts consult each other and request information from EHRs remotely. The storage capacity of the cloud is scalable, which means it can adapt to the requirements of a clinic or hospital. Practitioners access the data from any application, device, or system. Instant consultation with peer professors is also possible with cloud-based systems. Above all, if the corporate medical system is enhanced with machine learning and predictive analytics tools, doctors can foresee future trends and analyze the possibility of seasonal morbidity peaks.
Remote healthcare
Medical clinics and hospitals use cloud computing for remote patient monitoring. Statistics indicate that last year, 4 out of 10 physicians used telemedicine daily. Remote doctor visits make people stay safe at home and minimize the chance of catching an infection. This is particularly relevant for elderly people. At the same time, doctors handle more appointments if they occur online. As a result, medical providers increase the productivity of their staff.
Medical research
Cloud computing leverages big data and analytics in healthcare administration. In the same way, cloud-based data storage is convenient for medical researchers. First, it is possible to digitize and save massive data sets. Second, forceful computing powers can now be used to analyze and use the information. It was in 2005 when a medical scientist working on research had to address a nation’s supercomputing center for access to the required information. The waiting list could last several weeks. Today, with cloud computing, researchers can conduct their scientific work at their own pace and in their time slots.
Cloud computing security obstacles and solutions
Cloud computing envisages data storage and convenient access to data for medical providers. Security concerns are commonly connected with sharing information across multiple providers. According to the research conducted by the medical schools and health information technology departments, there are a number of security issues tied to cloud technologies, such as information confidentiality, data security and integrity, and network security.
Among the reasons for security threats, researchers mention:
- absence of sufficient network environment control;
- sloppy use of data integrity;
- lack of proper data encryption;
- insecure APIs.
Moving on to the solutions, cloud-based solutions should guarantee the following:
- Data encryption to reserve and extract information from the cloud. It complicates the chance of using cracked data because sophisticated encryption schemes can only be hacked with high computing powers.
- Authentication helps to achieve confidentiality. A protocol with physically unclonable functions (PUF) is said to be the best for user validation.
- Secure APIs provide cloud solutions with detailed logging and monitoring possibilities. In other words, users can track who accesses their data.
- Medical providers use data classification to categorize the information according to its sensitivity and importance. More sensitive data requires stricter protection. Therefore, organizations can relevantly prioritize their efforts and allocate resources.
Bottom line
Cloud-based solutions make healthcare businesses cost-effective, scalable, and better at communication to provide affordable, patient-centric service. The general trend among medical providers is to migrate their systems to the cloud. However, it is vital to keep in mind that such a transformation does not guarantee an immediate satisfying outcome. A comprehensive modernization strategy should be created that would include the goals of all stakeholders, including the business itself, patients, doctors, and IT staff. Developing digital healthcare demands interoperability between devices, technologies, and systems. As a result, medical providers receive an omnipotent platform for storing and maintaining medical data.