I recently read an excellent post on CloudTweaks that conveyed five major advantages healthcare organizations stand to gain by transitioning their services to the "cloud".
Five major advantages every lab stands to gain by taking advantage of cloud computing are:
1. Collaboration. In many cases specific information may be needed in two or more places at once by different individuals within the lab and across various health services providers. Through cloud technologies, the information is instantly accessible by all relevant individuals in real-time to facilitate collboration and sharing while eliminating unnecessary re-work.
2. Speed. Cloud-based healthcare software systems can upgrade and improve their features faster, less expensively and with minimal or no service interruption for the laboratory. This is a major improvement over the typical situation with laboratory information management systems that require protracted upgrade processes that can be disruptive and costly. Plus, cloud services enable faster access to important information for labs, healthcare providers, and in certain cases their patients.
3. Mobility. Cloud services make it possible to access information securely, in real-time via mobile devices including tablets, mobile phones, or laptops. By encrypting and storing data in the cloud and leveraging cloud-based computing power, labs and healthcare providers enable their staff to have access to information anywhere at anytime - including alerts of critical items that require someone to take action.
4. Security and privacy. Healthcare cloud services must comply with stringent security privacy standards such as HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and leadinig providers, including hc1.com, go well beyond what HIPAA requires to protect sensitive healthcare information. In fact, in the case of hc1.com which runs on the Amazon Web Services platform, the security levels are dramatically higher than typical on premise lab and healthcare provider systems environments as hc1.com benefits from billions of investment Amazon has made to secure their infrastructure - including proprietary encryption algorithms.
5. Decreased costs. By tapping into services delivered via the cloud, there is no need for labs or healthcare institutions to invest in hardware infrastructure and associated maintenance because these issues are addressed by the cloud computing provider. Additionally, the IT organization does not need to maintain or manage cloud based services so the business gains the value it is seeking without burdening over-worked IT professionals.
Healthcare services delivered via the cloud are gaining widespread adoption across the US and around the globe. In the case of hc1.com, labs gain healthcare CRM, healthcare business intelligence, and powerful pre-built analytics and alerts securely via the cloud. hc1.com delivers all of the benefits listed herein and more and truly evidences the power of healthcare cloud computing.
