The healthcare industry has come a long way in adopting new technology in the past decades, especially in storing, processing, and managing data. Cloud adoption has played a significant role in the digital transformation of clinics worldwide. Thus, healthcare cloud software development is a major enabler of digitization for medical companies. But why is it essential for healthcare, and can you go about daily operations without cloud computing services?
Of course, you can, and many clinics still operate the old way, with loads of paperwork and outdated data management processes. But such an approach hinders the efficiency of your business, costs more, and is tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming. Let us discuss medical organizations’ main challenges and how cloud optimization services help you address them.
Challenges Healthcare Organizations Deal With
Healthcare companies handle vast amounts of data related to patients and internal operations. The main challenges of businesses providing cloud development services are ensuring cost-efficiency, accessibility, and patient and corporate data security.
High Cost of Data Management
Clinics collect, store, and process data from different patients and devices. Processing all of that information via on-premise servers is expensive. Although such processing has its perks, it can hardly satisfy the needs of a large medical organization. The major problem with this approach is its exorbitant cost, making it inaccessible for many healthcare facilities worldwide.
According to the report published by Reuters, US healthcare institutions currently waste between $600 and $850 billion every year due to administrative inefficiency and redundancies in the treatment process. Operational efficiency is often a result of poor data management. You can never achieve it if you cannot control your patient data and have a 360-degree view of your resources or if you spend thousands of human hours on paperwork. The good news is that medical serverless development services could solve these problems.
Obstructed Access to Data
Healthcare organizations are complex in their structure and operations. Usually, several clinical professionals work with a single patient, and such teams of doctors and nurses might work with dozens of patients simultaneously. Access to data is vital for clinical teams as they need to know all the details about each patient.
Conveying up-to-date data across the medical teams is vital for successful treatment. However, with the outdated data management techniques so many healthcare facilities still stick to, it is impossible to relate all the essential data across clinical teams. That can cause communication breakdowns, delays, and even mistakes during treatment.
Problematic Data Security
Another problem is data security. With on-premise storage, you have no way to prevent information loss if anything goes sideways. Let us say you have a power outage in your storage facility, or someone just walked inside and stole all the data. There is no chance to restore it now. All your patient data, billing records, medical history, enterprise resource data, and lab tests must be secured. Unfortunately, on-premise data storage does not provide robust enough security for your assets, and any potential breach can damage your clinic tremendously.
Another point to consider is the problematic security of IoT devices. Connected devices are especially vulnerable to hacker attacks, and if you do not have cloud backups, you can lose your essential data quickly. If the hackers access one of your connected devices, it could be possible for them to access your entire system.
Why Shift to Cloud Optimization Services in Healthcare?
The problems of on-premise data storage call for cloud transformation in clinics worldwide. But you can resolve many crucial issues with cloud technology. They involve:
- Data security
- Data access
- High operational costs
- Etc.
Partnering with a reliable custom healthcare software development company, you can address many challenges hindering the efficiency of healthcare organizations.
Operate Your Data Easily
Healthcare organizations operate different data types. The most popular ones are:
- Patient data
- Contacts
- Personal information
- Medical history
- Appointment details
- Prescribed medications, etc.
It is not easy to structure and manage all of that data manually. For that reason, many clinics struggle to deliver high-quality healthcare services to their patients on time. Cloud computing allows you to harness the power of several advanced tools:
Data Analytics
The role of cloud computing in healthcare is to provide clinics with new tools for data management and analysis. As cloud platforms integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into their services, clinics get the opportunity for proper healthcare cloud analytics. Medical research can also be boosted with Big Data algorithms. With advanced healthcare cloud software, you can process significant volumes of data, analyze it, and draw actionable insights from the collected data sets.
Advanced Diagnostics
A timely and accurate diagnosis often means the difference between success and failure of patient treatment. Over the past years, the healthcare industry has been applying frontier technologies such as IoT, AI, ML, and blockchain to a much greater extent. Cloud optimization services allow you to handle many routine tasks related to processing test samples, which increases the velocity of diagnostics and improves the quality of care.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
AI-powered automation has significantly impacted numerous industries, and healthcare is no exception. Automating processes in hospitals allows for much more efficient management of healthcare facilities. That is especially true during the crisis periods, such as the one we have experienced during the pandemic. Cloud computing services can help:
- Automate scheduling for doctors and nurses
- Assign patients beds and rooms
- Maintain patient treatment records
- Manage the vaccination process
Because the data is stored in the cloud, you can distribute it between stakeholders quickly and easily. Doctors and nurses can receive real-time data updates on each patient. That way, they will know what kind of treatment has been administered to the patient, how the patient responded to that treatment, and what further steps to take to advance the treatment process.
Improve Access to Healthcare Services
One of the significant enablers of high-quality healthcare services these days is telemedicine. It has proven vital during the pandemic because it allows patients to receive services remotely. Even in the aftermath of the pandemic, telehealth solutions will remain popular as it eliminates the need to visit the hospital for millions of patients. That reduces the load on healthcare facilities and improves the quality of home care.
Healthcare cloud software-powered telemedicine solutions also provide people living in remote areas with the chance to receive high-quality care in the comfort of their homes. Regular communication with healthcare practitioners is one of the core benefits of cloud optimization services for patients.
Taking it a step further, doctors can monitor the condition of the patients who stay at home thanks to the connected wearable devices. Being able to monitor the patient’s vitals from any location, the doctors can respond to the dramatic changes in their condition and recommend necessary measures.
Enhance Interaction Between Patients and Doctors
Implementing healthcare cloud software allows doctors to communicate with patients more straightforwardly, resulting in an improved quality of care. For instance, patients can:
- Get test results faster
- Receive notifications and reminders according to appointment schedules
- Track treatment dynamics
- Log their daily medication intake
Patients can also provide doctors with feedback on treatment outcomes and report changes in their condition.
Increase the Efficiency of Clinical Staff
Storing data in the cloud allows experts from different clinics to quickly access the patient information and see what their previous doctors have been doing. That prevents the patients from being under or overprescribed. The doctors can also leave messages to other healthcare practitioners regarding particular patients. Efficient communication reduces the need for excessive tests and medication.
Benefit from Healthcare Cloud Computing Applications with a Reliable Partner
Cloud optimization services have a substantial and positive impact on healthcare. Still, cloud adoption is a complex process that requires both domain expertise and technical prowess. That is why you need a reliable custom healthcare software development company at your side to harness the power of the cloud and ensure a smooth digital transformation of your organization.
Cut the Development Cost
Developing cloud-based healthcare products is generally cheaper than on-premise. That is because you do not have to pay the exorbitant cost for the cloud storage and services you do not need. At SPsoft, we help you take advantage of the services provided by multiple cloud platforms like AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and more. The great thing about these providers is that they are based on the pay-as-you-go pricing model. It means that you only pay for the things you actively use.
With such a pricing model, we can fine-tune your cloud infrastructure to match your organization’s unique needs and develop cost-efficient products with respect to your budget. The price of maintaining your cloud infrastructure will correspond to the amount of storage space and services you utilize each month. However, you should keep in mind that with such a payment model, the price of your cloud infrastructure might fluctuate from month to month.
Launch Faster
Setting up a cloud architecture is also faster because you can use many pre-set services and compile them in a single infrastructure. It will require strong cloud architecture expertise, but you can do it effectively with experienced developers. A reliable healthcare software development company will help you launch your product faster without cutting corners.
Ensure Security of Assets
Cloud infrastructures are also vulnerable to cybersecurity threats, and hackers can breach your firewalls. However, what the cloud offers in return is the ability to back up all of your data. When hackers can steal data from either on-premise or cloud data storage, it is undoubtedly better to have your losses restored in a matter of hours rather than lose your assets. An experienced team of developers can implement data security protocols, access level controls, and backup systems that would fortify the security of your infrastructure and mitigate the chance of a breach.
Scale Your Cloud Infrastructure
As mentioned, you can choose between the providers’ different cloud optimization services. It means you can also include the new services and exclude the ones you no longer need. Healthcare cloud software is flexible and scalable, and you can change the settings on your cloud infrastructure anytime. SPsoft experts will help you scale your infrastructure up as a part of Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CI/CD) practice.
Final Thoughts
Cloud computing produces an ever-increasing impact on healthcare, and with all the benefits cloud optimization services bring to the table, it is easy to see its influence growing further. Healthcare cloud software opens new opportunities for clinics worldwide, and you might feel compelled to capitalize on that trend. To do that, you will need a reliable partner at your side, and SPsoft is the partner you need for successful cloud adoption and optimization.
