Healthcare
Table of Contents
Cloud computing has been gradually developing since the 1990s and gained basic features in 2014, finally exploding in 2020.
Today, cloud adoption in the healthcare industry continues to grow, with many organizations already benefitting from it. Technology shifts the way clinics, hospitals, and private practices work. Also, it changes and improves patient care a lot. Yet, these improvements come with doubts: about data privacy and cybersecurity, cloud services costs, compliance, and ownership.
Explore essentials and details of healthcare cloud computing, including types, benefits, challenges, and trends. We'll leave no cloud of uncertainty!
We can describe cloud solutions for the healthcare industry in four words: storage, computing power, networking, and analytics. Although there is so much more to the technology behind these concepts, this is what cloud providers offer.
By using cloud computing, healthcare providers are able to send large volumes of data to remote data centers for further access, processing, and analytics. Authorized specialists and patients can view medical records, including imaging, test results, and prescriptions, from anywhere, at any time.
The reason why healthcare cloud computing adoption is growing also lies in its features. Stable performance and greater experience for doctors and patients is possible thanks to such characteristics as:
The main driving factors in cloud-based healthcare adoption grow from the pandemic and its consequences. Implementing EHR/EMR, telehealth, e-prescribing, big data analytics, IoT, and wearable devices promoted the shift towards cloud solutions. And it turned out that secure data storage, flexibility, and scalability were the missing puzzle pieces the healthcare industry sought.
The prospects for the healthcare cloud computing market look bright. According to Grand View Research, the CAGR is expected to reach 12.7% in the following years, with overall market growth reaching $44.70 billion in 2030. There are even more optimistic estimates projecting growth up to $197.45 billion by 2032.
In terms of regional distribution, Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing market, while North America is the largest one. While private clouds reached a 37.6% market share in 2023, hybrid clouds are expected to become a dominant segment.
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The use of cloud computing for healthcare has become more multidimensional. If, in the beginning, healthcare organizations saw the main cloud benefit in data storage, now they apply AI and ML with the focus on advanced analytics, interoperability, and personalized care.
Technology providers reacted to the demand, offering cloud solutions tailored to the industry. The emphasis now is on creating comprehensive, integrated ecosystems that support any aspect of healthcare, from telehealth to precision medicine and drug development.
Technological developments like AI, ML, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) will continue to shape cloud computing in the healthcare industry, facilitating care and improving patient outcomes.
There are two main classifications of cloud computing: distribution and deployment. Typically, cloud providers offer businesses a place for data storage, computing resources, servers, and networking (interconnections between data elements). Some businesses move completely to the cloud, while others prefer to leave some resources and functions on-premise. Let’s see what are the core differences of these cloud computing types.
Imagine your application or enterprise system as a layer cake. On the bottom, we'll have hardware, networking, and virtualization, all together called infrastructure. The next layer includes the operating system, middleware, and runtime, comprising your app's platform. On the top, we'll put software and its data.
The basis of this classification is the amount of layers you request from your cloud provider.
To identify the deployment type, answer the question: who else uses the hardware where your data is located? While public clouds offer shared and cost-efficient solutions, concerns arise over security and compliance. A private cloud enables total ownership and control over resources, yet it is a complex and pricey solution. Hybrid and community clouds are in-between options aimed at balancing security with costs.
Here is a short overview of all cloud computing types that can be used for healthcare:
If cloud computing becomes so popular, with 90% of healthcare organizations expected to adopt it in 2025, what are the advantages?
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The most obvious benefit is saving costs. There are several ways how healthcare organizations optimize costs when shifting to cloud computing.
Businesses generally note how moving to the cloud has a positive effect on budget. According to the survey, 65% of global business and IT leaders stated up to 10% in cost savings thanks to cloud adoption. However, cost is not the only advantage cloud computing can bring.
Streamlined workflows, seamless interoperability, and real-time data sharing among healthcare providers improve quality of care and organization efficiency. Medical cloud computing centralizes all patient information in one place, enabling healthcare professionals to get a comprehensive view of the patient's health condition. The result is more precise diagnosis and better patient experience.
Cloud computing in healthcare implies consolidating patients' health records from various systems, reducing data fragmentation, and improving consistency. Cloud solutions facilitate smooth data sharing between different electronic health record (EHR) systems, imaging platforms, and clinical applications. As a result, patient data is distributed efficiently, and healthcare providers are empowered with data-driven insights.
Healthcare cloud computing comes with robust analytical tools that integrate genomic, clinical, and lifestyle data, providing a more personalized approach to each patient. Patients are provided with their health data, which makes them more involved and responsible in the healthcare process. Thanks to cloud solutions, healthcare services cover even remote destinations: patients book appointments with professionals via patient portals and telemedicine apps, view test results, and set medication reminders.
Сloud analytical capabilities help organizations process large volumes of patients' data, find patterns, and gain insights that a human eye can oversee. For instance, cloud AI-based predictive analytics allows early diagnosis and better treatment decisions.
Also, it can prevent fraud by identifying suspicious billing patterns and fraudulent claims. Cloud technology in healthcare supports remote patient monitoring: it analyzes real-time data from wearable devices and IoT-enabled medical tools. Overall, these strategies help optimize care, detect diseases early, recommend personalized treatments, and more.
Migrating to the cloud may help healthcare organizations in their initiatives to address climate change. This measure reduces a company’s carbon footprint by maintaining hardware off-premises. McKinsey reports that companies can reduce CO2 emissions by a solid 55% or more by moving to the cloud and its optimized usage.
One of the applications of cloud computing in healthcare is disaster recovery opportunities. Cloud providers ensure data resilience, security, and continuity in case of unexpected disruptions such as cyberattacks, system failures, natural disasters, or power outages.
Such stability is possible thanks to automated real-time backups, distribution across various locations, and protection from human errors. Immutable backups ensure that data cannot be modified, encrypted, or deleted, preventing ransomware from altering the records.
For all the advantages cloud technology brings to the healthcare industry, some clouds may appear on the horizon.
These are usually considered the main concerns in cloud computing for healthcare. Such assumptions are not completely true. Surely, as a healthcare organization, you must consider your cloud provider's security implications and compliance with industry standards.
Ready to address such concerns, many cloud providers continuously work to provide a high cybersecurity level for their customers, as well as offer compliant and secure solutions tailored for healthcare. As the number of cyberattacks on healthcare organizations continues to grow, with 275 million records breached in 2024 alone, we should expect further security measures enhancements from cloud providers.
Always an option: you can choose a more secure deployment type. While public clouds are often considered unsafe, private clouds offer greater security, and hybrid ones help providers balance costs with strict security measures. You can also blend these options, keeping sensitive data in a private cloud and moving all other processes and information to the public cloud.
The introduction of cloud solutions for the healthcare industry is not effortless and requires planning and resource allocation. Shifting to the cloud from legacy systems will entail complete changes in tasks, data management, and processes. So, for a smooth transition, organizations need to focus on effective change management, which includes strong leadership, open communication, adequate training, and ongoing oversight.
When addressed proactively, all resistance, compliance, and operational concerns that come with adopting cloud computing won’t stop you from reaching your business goals. Even more, managing change will maximize the benefits you can get out of medical cloud computing.
Migrating to the cloud and keeping everything running requires either skilled personnel in-house or finding the right outsourcing partner. The tech team is supposed to manage issues such as cloud strategy development, integration of cloud infrastructure, downtime connected with the migration, and other issues. To leverage cloud technologies, healthcare organizations have to invest in personnel training and recruitment of tech experts.
Cloud services costs include fees for computing, storage, and networking. The final bill also depends on additional factors like region and availability zones, data transfer fees, and the cost of managing data services.
Unexpected costs may arise when you store outdated or redundant data, purchase more capacity than you need, or underutilize resources. This is especially true for multi-cloud and hybrid cloud types, where you need a strong IT team to manage resources and additional orchestration tools.
What’s the solution? Launch a comprehensive audit of your healthcare cloud computing infrastructure: identify unused resources and right-size computing services, use correct storage options, and explore autoscaling solutions.
Every cloud has a silver lining. Awareness about potential challenges during the adoption of cloud computing in the healthcare industry allows you to make more informed decisions and safeguard your migration from budget overruns, technical issues, and compliance issues. Plan in advance and enjoy the expected results.
Today, almost any application can be deployed in the cloud or have integrations with functionality/data. A rare exception will be software with strict low-latency needs, strong hardware dependency, and highly customized legacy apps.
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What solutions does cloud computing in healthcare support?
It enables patients to have remote consultations and access their medical records, prescriptions, and lab results, improving their healthcare experience.
It allows healthcare providers to gather and analyze real-time data from wearables, gaining insights about patients' health and allowing them to offer proactive and personalized care.
Software combined with healthcare cloud computing helps to keep all medical data in one place and seamlessly share it between clinics and professionals, improving collaborative care.
They allow for more precise diagnostics, early diagnosis of diseases, and personalized care plans.
5. Drug discovery
It includes leveraging cloud computing, ML, AI, and big data analytics to predict drug interactions, find drug targets, and improve trial design.
These are AI-driven analytics tools that help doctors to make data-driven decisions and provide evidence-based recommendations.
It allows the creation of visual representations of the body for diagnosis, treatment planning, and disease monitoring. Using the cloud enhances its accuracy, speed, and accessibility across facilities.
Today, cloud technology goes beyond patient-doctor communication. It offers capabilities for diverse domain-related products like pharmacy apps, wearable health monitoring software, mental health and fitness apps, helping people take care of their health in flexible ways.
By 2026, Gartner predicts that 75% of organizations will shift towards a digital transformation approach that relies on the cloud as its primary platform. Are you considering healthcare cloud computing for your organization as well? We know where to start.
Planning never hurts a project. The prior step in your cloud journey is assessing your current infrastructure, identifying your business objectives, and clarifying requirements. Determine how your business will benefit from shifting to the cloud.
At this point, also think about your cloud migration strategy: whether you decide to migrate with your in-house team or entrust it to a reliable outsourcing partner.
The cloud migration budget depends on several factors, including your choice of cloud service type, selection of an in-house or outsourced team, maintenance costs, pricing model, and more. Introduction of cloud computing in healthcare also includes indirect costs, such as medical staff training on new cloud-based systems, regular compliance audits and vulnerability assessments, as well as AI-powered auto-scaling to prevent over-provisioning, among others.
Explore the nuances about security and regulatory compliance for the healthcare industry in advance. Perhaps your business handles sensitive data that needs extra safety measures. Fortunately, many providers cater to the healthcare industry's needs and can meet your expectations.
Learn about security and regulatory compliance for the healthcare industry in advance. Perhaps your business handles sensitive data that needs extra safety measures, but some cloud providers cannot ensure this. Fortunately, many providers cater to the healthcare industry's needs and can meet your expectations.
There are several points to consider when listing the potential cloud computing service providers.
First, look for transparent pricing. Discover their base product pricing, additional fees for data transfer, and additional costs like support.
Second, consider product offerings such as hosting services, balancing, storage, managed databases, Kubernetes, etc. Also, check supported operating systems and relevant documentation.
Third, check data center locations. The closer a data center is to your users, the lower the latency and data transfer speed are, and the faster your application or platform works, improving user experience. Also, some countries may impose restrictions or fees on data access.
Cloud computing in healthcare is not static. As technology evolves, more opportunities to use the cloud in clinics and hospitals appear. Here are just a few trends in the domain we anticipate developing:
With an aging population, growing demand for healthcare services, and further digitalization, development of cloud computing in medicine will continue changing the way people receive care.
Check the questions we did not address directly in the article and find concise answers.
Healthcare cloud computing means on-demand delivery of computing services via the Internet, removing the need for on-premises infrastructure. It offers storage, processing, and networking and is characterized by scalability, agility, flexibility, and cost efficiency.
Pricing models for cloud computing services include pay-as-you-go (on-demand), reserved instances, spot instances, and saving plans.
The selection of cloud computing pricing models for healthcare depends on your workload demands, availability and flexibility requirements, as well as budget constraints. Choose wisely!
The biggest concerns in cloud-based healthcare remain cyber threats and data breaches. Compliance issues are also occurring, as the healthcare domain is strictly regulated. Failure to meet compliance standards leads to fines, with over $1.8 million collected in 2023 alone.
The adoption of cloud computing in healthcare is expected to advance. Better interoperability, smooth data analytics, improved access to healthcare, and mere cost savings are but a few benefits that cloud computing offers.
Adopting both hybrid solutions and a multi-cloud approach requires having seasoned specialists on board who will manage your transition and ensure everything is working like clockwork. Contact NEKLO if you need help along your digital transformation journey.
US-based and operating globally, NEKLO spearheads digital transformation initiatives for businesses worldwide. We deliver software solutions complying with your market and legislation.
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