Technology is essential in healthcare to develop medical procedures and improve patient outcomes. Cloud technology and computing services have increasingly gained traction in the field of healthcare in recent years.
If applied correctly, cloud computing technology can prove to be quite useful in attaining an organization’s vision to adopt digital transformation, i.e. attempting to develop and own cloud technologies and implement custom software solutions.
Thus, cloud computing is an efficient approach to making quality health care accessible to the masses. Cloud service providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud deliver a broad range of related products and services that aid healthcare.
What is cloud computing?
Cloud computing is an important term in today’s business world. It altered how organizations employ information management tools for collaborative purposes. It is the on-demand delivery of computing resources to a business or individual via a network. Resources include hardware, storage, databases, networking, and software.
For various advantages to be discussed in this blog, organizations must maintain an online information network and manage their physical devices or IT infrastructure.
The advantages of cloud computing in Healthcare
The field of healthcare is changing with the ever-growing demands for better and more efficient outcomes. The easy availability of information has simplified the tasks involved in creating and deploying software, enabling the general public to access crucial care on demand.
- Accessibility
Healthcare businesses can swiftly and efficiently make their software resources meet changing demands by using cloud systems and having access to data from anywhere. Patient outcomes consequently improve as healthcare teams can access data and operate more effectively and efficiently.
- Scalability
Cloud computing increases the flexibility of businesses, making quick scalability possible to meet the growing demands without investing in any form of physical infrastructure. Similarly, downscaling is possible if specific resources become invalid or unrequired.
- Cost-Effectiveness
The affordability of cloud computing is a major advantage. Healthcare organizations can save hefty amounts of money on software development and deployment through reduced needs for hardware, software licensing, and maintenance fees. This results in increased financial savings and operational effectiveness for on-demand delivery.
- Data Security
The healthcare industry needs to ensure customer data security. This is where cloud computing comes into play. Cloud service providers offer data security measures such as encryption, multi-factor authorization, data breach response plans, regular audits, etc., to protect sensitive PHI.
- Compliance
The cloud software used by hospitals, clinics, insurance companies, and business associates of covered entities, such as third-party service providers, must meet HIPPA regulations. Cloud computing complies with legal requirements, upholds international standards, and ensures that PHI and ePHI are used properly.
- Disaster Recovery
Cloud services provide robust data security solutions. However, data loss recovery is effortlessly easy in most cloud environments in times of disaster due to the presence of data online. By leveraging cloud computing technology, healthcare providers can ensure the safety of sensitive patient data.
- Interoperability
Cloud computing makes integration of software with other services and providers easy, thus, enabling interoperability – a crucial aspect of healthcare software development and deployment. Ultimately resulting in an efficient outcome – enhancing advanced healthcare delivery to patients.
TechVariable’s approach to cloud computing
As a healthcare software development company, TechVariable has successfully leveraged cloud computing to develop and deploy software solutions. AWS offers a wide range of services certified as HIPAA compliant, making it a popular choice for healthcare organizations looking to establish secure and compliant infrastructures.
TechVariable’s entire architecture is serverless, and we use AWS for our work. Whenever we start a new software development project, we use a set of AWS tools that aid our process.
- Bitbucket, the codebase repository, is the git provider used for automation. BitBucket uses the AWS pipeline to deploy the code automatically.
- The project’s front end is built in BitBucket and uses AWS Amplify to deploy the code. AWS repository, Route 53, a DNS web service, is used for domain registration. Additionally, the front end uses AWS AppSync to create serverless GraphQL that simplifies application development, making it fast and flexible.
- The project’s backend is handled by AWS CodeBuild, which integrates source code to develop, test, and deploy operable software packages. Once the cloud formation is done, the lambda’s are deployed using AWS Lamda. AWS CloudFormation is a service that creates a stack containing a Cloud Development Kit(CDK), which includes lambdas, logs, SNS, SQLs, etc.
- We use a data warehouse, Snowflake, hosted with AWS and databases, viz., AWS Aurora and AWS Neptune, to store and analyze data. AWS Neptune works with multi-tenancy.
- Our entire infrastructure is set and created within VPCs. This helps data security. Additionally, we incorporate Bastion host, which reduces the chances of data misuse by restricting access. Only authorized users can access any private network from an external network.
Read on our process of building an AWS HIPPA-compliant infrastructure.
Limitations of Cloud Computing
Despite the many advantages of cloud computing, the technology has certain limitations. The dependence on an internet connection is one of the main disadvantages. Hence, a broken link would prevent users from accessing the necessary data, and there is a potential risk of vendor lock-in. Threats to data security and privacy and users’ limited ability to influence the underlying cloud architecture can cause significant problems.
Future Scope
The growing market size has predicted that the healthcare sector’s reliance on cloud computing will only increase significantly. The global cloud computing market is forecasted to reach $1.71 tn at a CAGR of 19.9% by 2029.
Organizations looking to undergo digital transformation with cloud computing are providing better business continuity and more prominent outcomes for business operations. Businesses like ours may successfully use this technology to offer customers high-quality software solutions.
