The ascendance of Cloud Computing is new to none. It has grown in leaps and bounds. With this growth, Cloud Computing has impacted several domains. In this article, we will discuss how Cloud Computing has impacted the Healthcare domain, and in the process, we will learn the advantages of Cloud Computing in Healthcare.
The following points will be covered in this article:
- Collaboration
- Use of Big Data to Treat Patients
- Medical Research and Analysis
- Remote Patient Care
- Data Storage Scalability and Cost
Let’s get started.
Global Impact of Cloud Computing on Healthcare
Cloud computing is emerging at a rapid pace, and the demand for it in the healthcare industry is on the rise. According to the article by Business Wire, the global cloud computing market in healthcare organizations is expected to rise by USD 25.54 billion during 2020-2024 at a CAGR of 23% approximately.
The latest market research report by Technavio says that the market impact of cloud computing has significantly improved, and new job opportunities are created for healthcare professionals due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has impacted the economic growth of healthcare industries globally.
Without much ado, let’s discuss 5 key advantages of cloud computing in healthcare.
Collaboration
Collaboration may sound like a simple requirement but is an important one. Healthcare is one domain where a minute’s delay could be a cause of someone’s life. Hence, if we can have a system where we can store data centrally, that would be a great boon for all. What this would do is, it would make it easier to access a patient’s files across the globe with ease. In addition, this would give doctors the luxury and time to treat patients in need and dire circumstances.
Through cloud platforms, we can have a centralized system where the data management is quite simple. Storage becomes cheaper. You can get different options to access the patient data, providing you remote accessibility from anywhere in the world. With a vast cloud network, it can be accessed across the globe at a faster rate. Hence, Cloud Computing is easily a great boon to healthcare when it comes to collaboration.
Use of Big Data to Treat Patients
Big Data has taken the world by storm, and people have started understanding the importance of data in shaping their decisions. With Big Data, it is easier to understand information and narrow it down to solve different human problems. However, Big Data these days, is not only limited to solving business problems. This data can also be used to solve problems that concern treating patients. With all Cloud Computing abilities to host a huge amount of data, you can narrow down the data using Big Data on Cloud and can process it to understand patient problems quickly and find a solution to the patient’s illness.
Medical Research
We have just seen the power of what Big Data Analytics can do to manage and sort large amounts of data. If we step into the world of data analysis, there is a lot more we can do with Analytics and Cloud Computing combined for the medical world. With Cloud Computing, the first thing that helps analysis, is the ease with which we can access data needed for data analysis.
The next thing Cloud Computing does for us is, provide various services that help us implement Data Analysis on the data. There are dedicated services that ensure Data Science and Machine Learning implementation for research. It also provides the infrastructure to host these applications on Cloud, which can also be accessed across the globe.
We have seen the impact of COVID-19 across the globe. Cloud Computing, like many other types of research to study human bodies, and to find vaccines for some diseases, has helped in research for finding a cure for the novel coronavirus.
Remote Patient Care
IoT is another wonder that has influenced the technology market and the world by its presence. With IoT or the Internet of Things as we call it, it is easy to collect data using sensors and monitor various activities in real-time. With the use of IoT, we can have an impact on the healthcare industry. Let us try and understand how.
In the healthcare domain, it is important to monitor the health of the patients, and get constant data. With the Internet of Things, getting this data becomes easier, since we can connect the world using sensors. Now you can monitor a person’s pulse, using sensors.
A diabetic individual who needs to test his or her sugar levels every fortnight, may not need to visit the hospital each time. We can easily use machines that can be made smart enough with the help of IoT. These machines can then send the data to the doctors. As a patient, you can check your sugar levels at home and still ensure that your reports reach the hospitals on time.
In times like COVID-19, when we cannot filter out medical concerns, monitoring patients while at home can help save the effort of travelling to a hospital and yet be monitored by a doctor using IoT. This will work wonders when it comes to following social distancing across the globe. Forget hospitals, there are plenty of devices available these days that work for individual fitness and are powered by IoT.
You must be wondering, how does Cloud Computing contribute here? Majority of these IoT devices backup their data using Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing, just like Machine Learning and Data Science, provides plenty of services that help set up, maintain and monitor IoT devices across the globe, making it easy to monitor numerous activities across the globe.
Data Storage Scalability and Cost
We have discussed the importance of storing data on Cloud. What Cloud also does well, is it gives you options to store data. You can store data in different formats. Be it files that are structured and unstructured. What cloud does best, is it gives you the ability to store data in digital forms. What this means is that the data is available whenever we need it, and also across the globe. Also, you don’t have to keep physical copies of this data in paper forms.
If the hospital keeps digital records, they can fire up a query and tell you instantly about your previous visits and treatment progress. Having electronic medical records will help you access the data through mobile apps or any other device around the world. Suppose a natural disaster occurred at your place or some flu is spreading widely. The patients can quickly consult doctors through their smart devices. The doctors can track the patient’s condition and check if there is any medical condition through the previously stored records. This will help the doctors to reach out to other nearer doctors if there is an emergency. Hence, storing data is a significant contribution that Cloud Computing offers in the Healthcare domain.
We talked about Big Data, Machine Learning, IoT, and the data it generates. To store this data, we need servers that can handle this growing traffic or needs of infrastructure. All this storage, Data Scaling or the high-end domains we discussed, can be made available at a cheaper price to the world. With Cloud Computing, you have metered usage of resources. That means you do not have to buy these resources. Instead, you are renting these resources. You will be paying only for the resources you have used, and only for the time duration you have used these resources for. Some these services charge on a per second or a per minute basis. If you are using these resources for a certain number of minutes or seconds, then you will be charged only for those seconds or minutes. That is how Cloud Computing helps us optimise costs.
This blog was about the advantages of cloud computing. There are plenty more advantages that you can list down. This brings us to the end of this article on 5 Advantages of Cloud Computing in Healthcare. We hope you enjoyed it, and it piqued your interest in the Cloud Computing domain and its applications.
In case you have questions that concern Cloud Computing or Cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud platform, do put those in the comment section below and our team would revert to you at the earliest. You can also check our Great Learning’s PGP Cloud Computing Courses and unlock your dream career.
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