How cloud is turning to be an effective tool for healthcare industry during Covid-19

By Khushboo Jain

Healthcare in the digital age has become a place where a tremendous amount of data is generated on a daily basis. Patients’ medical and financial details, as well as any research, are just some of the data that is generated, and maintaining a quick and secure database is of utmost importance.

With the coronavirus outbreak, hospitals and clinics are being overwhelmed with patients. The amount of data that needs to be generated or shared and the speed at which it needs to occur puts a lot of pressure on healthcare professionals. Luckily for them, cloud computing could provide a quick, secure, and cost-effective solution.

Cloud computing comes with a unique set of benefits that can greatly benefit the healthcare sector.

Management of servers
The advantage of cloud-based systems for healthcare is that managing data is not the job of the healthcare provider. With talented IT professionals keeping a watch and managing the system, healthcare providers are able to focus on other important facets of healthcare.

Cost benefits 
With cloud computing, it is easier to oversee the services you pay for and take decisions that are cost-effective. By making a custom plan to fit your needs, you can negotiate a deal that is a lot more cost-effective than setting up your own systems.

Designed to manage a tremendous amount of data
As stated earlier, Healthcare and its related sectors generate a lot of data. For example, medical images like scans are extremely detailed and generate high-resolution images, utilizing a lot of data. A lot of this data needs to be stored for the patient’s entire lifetime, not to mention – be kept secure. Physical storage is inconvenient and cloud computing provides an easier alternative.

Fast speeds
With patient numbers increasing, speed is of utmost importance. Accessibility to faster cloud servers makes it easy to upload, share, and recover data at a quick pace. It also gives us the ability to make changes faster. Exchange of data and communication between healthcare workers, hospitals, research centers, and funding services like medical crowdfunding creates a better healthcare environment. Time is of the essence in healthcare and with cloud, we can now be a lot more time-efficient.

Security and protection
Cloud computing has come a long way when it comes to addressing security concerns. The use of private and hybrid cloud systems has ensured that the medical and financial details of a patient remain secure. For example, if a hospital has a patient that needs to raise funds using a crowdfunding platform, there can be a secure exchange of data between the platform and the hospital using cloud systems. Moreover, the remote servers keep it more protected from any on-location hazard and also reduces any hassles during data recovery.

The opportunities that Cloud computing gives to the Healthcare systems:

Scalability 
The needs of the healthcare service provider may change with time. Scaling the cloud services according to their requirements is easy. Cloud allows you to scale up or down quickly, allowing you to meet your current needs or prevent unnecessary expenditure, and also allow for future growth.

Ability to update
Technology is in a constant state of change and innovation. As systems upgrade, data will need to be changed/updated. Whenever these changes do occur, updating data using cloud will be much easier and quicker. Having a cloud-based system will enable you to update your data, applications, and systems as quickly as possible.

Allowing easier collaborations 
During the digital age, the sharing of resources is important to create better opportunities for patients. For eg. collaborating with other healthcare providers can provide better services while collaborating with crowdfunding and other alternative funding options enables patients to afford them. Collaborations like these create a better healthcare system for everyone.

Using cloud data in telemedical practices
During this pandemic, doctors and patients alike are at risk of contracting the virus in hospitals. During this critical time, telemedical practices can help healthcare workers continue to provide safe healthcare remotely. These modern medical systems need to transfer the patient data back and forth at high speeds, something that cloud can be used easily, while also maintaining the doctor-patient privacy. By involving cloud computing in telemedical systems, we can now have a safe system, both physically and digitally.

More resources to focus on the medical needs
From all that we can assimilate from the advantages that cloud-based systems have, we can come to the conclusion that such systems can drastically reduce the number of resources that would be required from the healthcare systems to manage data. It saves time, money, and other important resources. The availability of these resources allows healthcare service providers to concentrate on providing better services, which should be their primary focus.

The early adopters of cloud services have been able to reap the benefits of it for some time now. This has only proved that cloud computing is not only viable, but essential to healthcare, and needs to be adopted now more than ever before.

(The author is Co-Founder and COO, ImpactGuru.com)