Healthcare organizations continue to adopt cloud computing for the many benefits that cloud provides their organization. According to a West Monroe Partner’s report, despite popular belief, healthcare organizations are farther along with cloud adoption compared to other organizations. In fact, 35% of the healthcare organizations that were surveyed held 50% or more of their data and infrastructure in the cloud.
There are many reasons that healthcare organizations continue to adopt the cloud. Cloud computing allows companies to become more efficient, optimize workflows, lower operating costs, and allows them to offer personalized care to their patients. All of these benefits help organizations run smoothly and improve outcomes.
Here are five main characteristics about cloud computing that are having a major impact on the healthcare industry.
- Lowering Costs
Moving data and infrastructure to the cloud can greatly lower operating costs for healthcare organizations. By utilizing the cloud, hospitals and other healthcare companies do not have to purchase their storage equipment. This ultimately leads to a reduced cost of labor because the hospital does not have to employ someone to oversee their in-house equipment. Not only is there no equipment cost, organizations can scale the services they need in the cloud to account for their business.
Whereas it might take healthcare companies a year and up to $500K to achieve compliance on their own, Project Hosts provides a Turnkey Healthcare Compliant Cloud that will allow organizations to achieve security and compliance in about six weeks and at a fraction of the cost.
- Interoperability
Interoperability is the ability to exchange and make use of information across systems. The cloud allows doctors, nurses, and other employees from all over the hospital to enter information into the system and is then readily available to anyone who may need it. Not only does this help individuals throughout one organization, but the cloud makes interoperability across different healthcare organizations easy. Information can be transferred from a former doctor to the patient’s new doctor with little to no trouble.
- High Powered Analytics
With the cloud, healthcare organizations are able to easily collect patient information and then apply algorithms to the data for medical research. With all of the information in the cloud, healthcare organizations do not have to manually enter data into different programs to do their research. This research can lead to improved health care plans and lower the chance of missing data from patients.
- Offers Greater Security
Since the EMR mandate, healthcare providers have established electronic data storage on-premises, but are finding that the security protocals, regulatory compliance management and high availability of support are far superior when working with a reputable Cloud Service Provider (CSP). A CSP specializing in Securty and Compliance, such as Project Hosts, provides pre-audited environments and implements controls related to access, authentication, encryption, scanning, business continuity, change management, incident response, privacy, annual assessment, penetration testing and required documentation.
- Telemedicine
Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients by means of telecommunications technology (desktop, mobile phone, etc.). Telemedicine may be having the greatest impact on the healthcare industry today. Cloud-based telemedicine allows sharing of data, improved accessibility, and provides healthcare coverage to patients at all times throughout their journey without direct physical contact.
Project Hosts provides a secure and compliant solution for healthcare companies requiring a cloud environment to provide these services. Project Hosts ensures secure and compliant transmission of information and data between home health devices and the doctors who monitor, share, and respond to the information collected. All five of these areas are having a tremendous impact on the healthcare industry. Although these benefits can be utilized when using the cloud, many organizations have concerns about switching to the cloud. Security, compliance, and system downtimes all seem to be of top concern when making the switch. Project Hosts has operations in place to cover all three of these areas.
The team at Project Hosts continuously monitors your systems to ensure that no security threats are present. We work tirelessly to fight any threats that may appear. Project Hosts’ healthcare compliant cloud is HIPAA compliant and HITRUST certified and we ensure that all compliances are up to date. Finally, when moving your system to Project Hosts’ Cloud, we will make the move as easy as possible to make downtime manageable. When your system is in our pre-audited cloud environment, we provide easy back-up and recovery services so that possible future downtime will be minimum.
Project Hosts knows that cloud computing is having a major impact on the healthcare industry and we are dedicated to staying on top of changes to ensure security and compliance.
