Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Cloud are currently the top three global cloud vendors. They offer cloud services, platforms, and infrastructure for businesses of different domains. They are also partnering with companies to help the latter better understand cloud computing and use it to improve KPIs and increase profit. Such a tendency is relevant for the healthcare domain, as medical providers often do not have enough resources to allocate them to IT development. However, many enterprises still feel hesitant about cloud technologies and their security. In this post, healthtech firms read about cloud computing’s pros and cons and decide if it is worth implementing.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is storing and managing data and applications in the cloud. Cloud providers offer hosting services, and customers pay for what they use. The main advantage is that businesses do not have to bother about on-premises servers, maintenance payments, or bulky equipment.
In healthcare, cloud computing serves various purposes. As the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) with 20 years of healthtech experience, Dmitry Baraishuk mentions, the main appealing possibility of cloud computing for medical providers is accessibility. End users, who are doctors and patients, control the data remotely. For example, medical experts refer to electronic health records (EHRs) from any location without the necessity to physically be there. It leads to better communication between providers. Patients can find information about their next appointment or check their lab results status on patient platforms. Those are portals where patients can choose a slot in their physician’s schedule and manage their appointments.
Advantages of cloud computing in healthcare
Wide accessibility
Cloud hosting allows medical experts, the clinic’s administrative staff, and patients to access necessary documents anytime from any location. The only requirement is a steady Internet connection. Another plus is that there are no limits on the devices, which enables doctors and nurses to fulfill forms remotely.
To reach wider audiences, healthtech companies often migrate from .NET framework to .NET core. Developers from the Belitsoft company have assisted their client in moving the EHR solution to the cloud. Before the migration, the software was built on the .NET framework, which is why it was available to Windows OS users only. The .NET core functionality made the product available to macOS, so the target audience has increased. Besides, the company has decided to continue cooperating with outsourced IT experts to customize solutions to each client’s demands.
Scalability
Resource pooling allows cloud solutions to grow and shrink according to the demands. Such cloud possibilities as computing, extra storage, and networking can be added or removed by the cloud provider upon request. As a result, IT teams optimize their workloads and avoid critical situations when the website is down due to an increased number of visitors. This feature is extremely relevant when the business grows or, as often happens with healthcare software, at seasonal peak times.
Traditional on-premises servers fail to demonstrate such flexibility. To plan for peak capacity, enterprises must invest in additional servers, which is excessive during lulls in activity.
Data backup
Keeping the data on-premises is risky in cases of hardware failures, human errors, and cyber attacks. Cloud storage allows for restoring the data. Some businesses may use cloud hosting as a backup solution. If something happens with the data locally, IT experts can recover it remotely from the cloud.
Reduced costs
Different models of cloud-based solutions hold various advantages and ways of saving costs.
The software-as-a-service (SaaS) implies that users pay for what they use. It means transparent payments and total control of the spending. This is a good option for companies, as they can track how much resource they need and save when the loads are light.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) are more expensive solutions. However, the PaaS and IaaS do not require any additional expensive software and licensing or installation fees. Besides, those models save money in the long run due to decreased management costs and embedded cloud cost optimization features. Automatic scaling and resource allocation enable businesses to use resources efficiently and reduce total cloud spending.
Challenges of cloud computing in healthcare
Data safety
Remote access to information might play into the hands of cybercriminals. If cloud solutions do not comply with safety standards, medical data can be stolen and leaked into the Internet. Patients share sensitive information about health issues, insurance policies, and payments with medical providers. Losing that data will lead to reputation losses and fines. The Black Basta is a notoriously known group of ransomware criminals. In May 2024, they attacked two healthcare organizations. The group encrypted the patient data and demanded money for decoding it. Acting in the same way, they have already earned around $100 million since 2022.
The good news is that this risk is completely addressable. According to the research carried out by medical schools and health IT departments, the main reasons for security breaches in healthcare are insufficient staff instruction, lack of proper data encryption, and network environment control. The first issue is solved by steady mentoring of the employees and organizing training sessions about data security measures. The last two problems are eliminated by cybersecurity specialists. While it is not the expertise of medical providers to hire competent cybersecurity analysts, partnering with healthtech companies aids in dealing with cloud security. IT experts apply zero-trust authentication, behavior monitoring, network segmentation, and other measures to protect personal data.
Limited control
On the one hand, cloud providers relieve the necessity of internal management of the solution from a medical provider. On the other hand, IT departments may appear too far away from their cloud systems. For example, developers may need to customize some storage settings.
Some cloud hosting providers offer a “shared responsibility” model. For the clients, it means they can adjust their own data management strategies to the cloud. For instance, AWS offers its customers a security model, in which clients can choose the spheres of their responsibility in the cloud, e.g., customer data, applications, firewall configurations, etc. The AWS in this model is responsible for the security of the cloud, i.e., the global infrastructure.
Final thoughts: does my business need cloud computing?
Experts from Gartner found that 92% of healthcare providers plan to implement distributed cloud technologies by 2025. A simple calculation of the pros and cons mentioned in the article shows that the advantages of cloud computing for healthcare outweigh the disadvantages. That is why the answer to hesitating companies will be “Yes, your business does need cloud computing.” However, to benefit from cloud technologies and minimize risks, IT solutions should be planned, secured, and configured by experts.
