6 ways health care benefits from cloud computing

Cloud computing isn't a new phenomenon in the health care industry. Current research trends show that the market for cloud technology is set to grow by around $25 billion by 2024. 

The effects of the pandemic are yet to fully unfold, but some industries might never remain the same. The technology and health care sectors tend to fall under this category making the coming years promising ones for health care cloud computing. With social distancing and remote work taking center stage, trends like telehealth have grown exponentially.

A report by Frost & Sullivan suggests that telehealth has been broadly adopted more than two years earlier than anticipated due to COVID-19. Health care providers will continue to use these tools once the crisis is over in the future. Living in this new reality comes with a set of new payment modalities and patient experiences where technology comes into the picture. Here are six ways cloud computing is currently changing health care.

1. Collaborative benefits
As health care organizations are moving toward more value-based care approaches, the role of doctors, institutions and departments has become particularly important. Health care providers can transfer data across the cloud computing services, leading to overall increased cooperation through the collaboration for excellent treatment.

2. Machine learning and artificial intelligence
AI and health care have not always been in a symbiotic relationship. With the limited time that health care professionals have, and amid the ongoing pandemic, machine learning and AI can help in supporting clinical decision-making with their strong affliction to enabling medical diagnosis, and finally by reducing the time required for treatment. We can safely assume that ML and AI will take mainstream health care by storm while also helping to oversee massive data.

3. Data storage
Health care providers are required to deal with patient portals, electronic health records, big data analytics and a bunch of mobile apps. There's a great deal of data to analyze and manage, for which in-house equipment may not be able to store. Cloud computing can help in managing data storage and avoid the costs of buying physical servers.

4. Scalability
As opposed to the conventional self-hosting methodologies, cloud computing gives us a super flexible approach to either decrease or increase data storage, ultimately depending on the patient's inflow and outflow. By using cloud computing, health care organizations can scale technology to their benefit, with fewer software updates or health care purchases.

5. Budget and Costs
We're all aware of the budgetary constraints of innovation. Cloud computing tends to work on a subscription-only model, where health care workers can save the costs of purchasing expensive equipment and systems. By using cloud servers, health care organizations can reduce the costs of providers' resources.

6. Security
A final concern is offloading all sensitive data to a third-party server. Organizations are required to comply with the HIPAA or GDPR frameworks, along with others. However, cloud providers are also required to offer risk management, security and monitoring services to protect you from any unauthorized security breaches. It all comes down to figuring out whether cloud computing is the right fit for your needs, given that security breaches may also be less common with cloud computing.

Choosing the most fitting technology provider for your needs is an essential next step. With the numerous opportunities to safeguard data and mitigate security risks, your new platform must have the right infrastructure to support it. Perle gives you the hardware you need to support your efforts. Read our customer success stories to learn more.