4 REASONS CLOUD COMPUTING IS BEST FOR MEDICAL OFFICES

Why the Cloud is the Best Place for Many Essential Computer Tasks

Medical groups and hospitals in the past used paper files and records to store data: patients’ medical records, providers’ contact info, the number of medical tablets on order for the surgical department, etc,. Unfortunately, these could be easily misplaced, destroyed, or stolen.

The arrival of computers changed this filing system. The information was moved to in-house PCs and data centers with servers.

Now medical organizations are increasingly migrating their data to the cloud. Expense, scalability, security, and connectivity are four major reasons leading to this trend.

Cloud Computing Lowers Expenses, Frees up IT

Medical offices generate enormous amounts of electronic data. In-house computer systems, limited by hardware, quickly and easily reach their limits. Expanding the systems can prove costly: on the conservative end, client-server configurations can cost $40,000 or more.

That’s just to get set up. Expenses from licensing fees, updates, and software patches add to that price tag. Hardware can take up a substantial amount of space, a valuable commodity for small and medium-sized medical practices.

Healthcare IT staff must be on-site and available for these in-house systems. This staffing can strain already tight budgets. On-site maintenance also pulls technicians from vital tasks like trouble-shooting medical devices.

Cloud computing addresses these issues. Providers of cloud-based computing services like a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) house all the necessary hardware and software at their location and at a fraction of the cost. This saves medical offices from purchasing expensive systems and equipment. Office space, too, is freed up.

With no on-site systems to constantly maintain, there’s no need for a large IT staff. The remaining technicians can direct their time and attention on more important projects like setting up medical computers to the anesthesia machines.

How Cloud Computing Grows with Data (Scalability)

Scalability in healthcare is the ability to increase or decrease one’s data storage and services as needed. On-site scalability is expensive in equipment, time, and labor.

Why? Offices are limited by their hardware. As storage space runs out, more equipment has to be purchased and brought online. Medical staff and healthcare IT must carefully gauge their needs due to costs. The consequences can be quite severe if wrong. An on-site server can go down, for example, taking the entire office network off-line.

Cloud computing, being done off-site by a vendor, gives medical offices the flexibility to scale quickly, easily, and inexpensively. Volume of patients up due to the flu season? Not a problem. Just notify the cloud provider who’ll then make the necessary adjustments. Adding a new medical office? Again, just let them know. SaaS companies make sure they have the latest hardware and software solutions to meet their clients ever-changing needs. They keep costs low thanks to economies of scale, i.e., having clients ranging from solo practitioners to massive healthcare organizations.

Increased Reliability, Cybersecurity with Cloud Computing

It’s essential for medical offices to prevent any downtime of the network for any reason, e.g., software issues, natural disasters like local fires, floods, etc. The right information can literally be a matter of life or death in healthcare.

Cloud computing helps minimize such scenarios. That’s because their data is backed up securely in multiple locations. Medical office staff as long as they can log onto the Internet should always be able to have access to the data.

Cybersecurity is another advantage by cloud computing. Healthcare data is highly confidential. While on-site medical computers can be equipped with necessary security features like built-in RFID readers and Imprivata single sign-on, there are limits like off-site hackers. In-house HIT staff for example may not always be up-to-date on the latest security protocols due to workload.

Cloud providers are already in-tune with the latest stringent regulations in healthcare like HIPAA. They regularly monitor their clients’ data for new viruses, internet scams, and other vulnerabilities. This helps ensure client data is protected with the highest levels in cybersecurity.

How Cloud Computing Connects Anywhere

In-house client-server networks are designed to work within their specific healthcare group. When working outside those locations, clinicians and other support staff have limited access to necessary patient information if at all.

Cloud computing poses no such limitation. With cloud computing, the clinician with permission can access a patient’s information anywhere there’s an Internet connection. An emergency room doctor with the right setup could now pull up a patient’s chart on the ER computer.