In a recent article titled "Overcoming the 4 biggest cloud computing challenges in health care" by Sam Narisi, he discusses the potential affects that cloud computing could have on the healthcare industry, along with the challenges that could arise.
He states that the main potential hospitals could see is savings, with the possibility to "cut IT spending by 9%". However, even with this potential cost savings benefit, the healthcare industry is still far behind in the adoption of cloud computing. He goes on to say, "among the eight industries the respondents worked in, healthcare was ranked next to last in terms of cloud computing adoption." However, the benefits reach beyond just saving money for your laboratory, radiology practice, or healthcare organization, there is the potential to increase efficiency and be able to accomplish more in a smaller time period.
As I mentioned earlier, his article also discusses four potential challenges that come along with cloud computing:
Challenge: Security
He discusses that cloud computing security concerns are very present given the fact that hospitals and healthcare industries hold such important information, therefore it's dire that the vendor provide top notch security.
Solution: hc1 Secure Communications & Alerts gives your health system the peace of mind that critical intelligence is secure and immediately available to those who need it with our roles-based dashboards and reports.
Challenge: Vendor Stability
He mentions the fact that many people are concerned with vendors staying in business long enough, because if they stop providing that service or system many "customers could be at risk of losing their data."
Solution: hc1.com's Healthcare Relationship Management solution already plays an integral role for over 500 healthcare organizations across the country. Along with that, hc1.com recently won the 2013 MIRA Award and the Red Herring Top 100 North America Award. Stability and growth? It's here.
Challenge: Incompatibility
He dives into the importance of making sure the new cloud service will be compatible with existing software. He states, "If things don't go smoothly during the testing, the organization will have to figure out what needs to be upgraded and decide if that's worth it."
Solution: hc1.com's healthcare experts have decades of experience bringing together disparate data silos into a central view of your organization and it's clients. The solution lays on top of all of these disparate silos and brings them together into user friendly and customizable dashboards and reports.
Challenge: IT Skills
He discusses that IT professionals with significant cloud computing skills are hard to come by these days and that's a major issue with adopting this type of service. However, he states one solution is to "offer training to IT employees already on staff."
Solution: hc1.com does all of the heavy lifting for you, and no customization is needed. It was built from the ground up to meet the specific needs of your healthcare organization. Our healthcare CRM and Business Intelligence experts will educate your team on leveraging the hc1.com solution through our online help, in-person training sessions, and constant investment in research and development (so you don't have to).
As you can see, there are questions and challenges out there with cloud computing and the healthcare industry. But there is also a solution, watch this 2-minute video to find out more.
