The field of medicine is much like that of technology, ever-changing, and ever-growing. Healthcare has come a long way if I might say so myself, and the great thing about changes is the ability to treat more diseases and illnesses. These cures and treatments not only modern medicine but also the use of technological advances. The healthcare industry is surprising: one of the leading sectors that have moved to cloud adoption. It is said that out of organizations that were interviewed, 35 percent of them stated that more than 50 percent of their data and infrastructure is now on the cloud. Here are three ways that cloud computing benefits the healthcare industry.
Flexibility and Scalability
Cloud services always help to address fluctuating demands when needs arise. It is so easy to scale up the organization’s capacity at just the press of a button. If there is ever a need to scale down, the cloud allows you to do so within the cloud model. The cloud has a ton to offer, and it helps to enable organizations to continually add programs, locations, and staff to support their models of care. The healthcare field is in an environment that is ever-changing. With this ever-growing environment, there will always be regulatory enhancements, financing reform, competition, or clinical quality initiatives, which creates external pressures. In a conventional self-hosted model, organizations are forced into the cycle of trying to keep up with hardware purchases and maintenance to support these changes.
Security and Reliability
If done correctly, these are two of the cloud’s most substantial capabilities that it has to offer a healthcare organization. One of the biggest reasons that security of the cloud is essential is due to the need to protect private healthcare information. Reliability plays a role of being able to hold all the data that is stored on the cloud. As long as the data has been stored on the cloud, if something were to happen to a computer, there would be no loss of data. Data storage is essential as there are laws regarding the storage of medical records for a certain amount of time.
Cost
The healthcare industry relies heavily on updated equipment and machines due to the ever-changing field as common diseases and illnesses are ever-changing. When it comes to technology and what is being used, the cost is a deciding factor. Most companies are spending at least 75 percent of their allotted IT budget solely on maintaining existing technologies. However, there is not a cost comparison that details the differences, and cloud computing drastically cuts the costs of hardware and capital expenditures.
Cloud computing has been outside of so many companies’ budgets due to the costs associated with migration and maintenance. Over the years, with technology moving forward, several things such as costs, security, and flexibility have made significant improvements and changes. Cloud computing is critical to the growth of the healthcare industry. While saving money on the IT side, they can spend more money to improve the quality of health with updated medical equipment as well as hire more staff to run more efficiently. This allows better care for patients all across the world to ensure they are getting the medical care needed to live. With the cloud, it gives companies opportunities to use the latest technologies available.
