How cloud overcomes challenges and reshaping possibilities for healthcare

The trend of embracing the cloud is growing as life sciences and health care (LSHC) organizations accelerate their business and digital transformation endeavors. While some seek the traditional advantages the cloud offers, such as scalability, flexibility, cost optimization, and access to cutting-edge technology, numerous organizations have realized that the cloud holds greater potential in delivering seamless experiences centered around consumers, be they, patients or customers. Moreover, it enables workflows that yield superior outcomes while fostering extensive collaboration.

What does the cloud have in store for LSHC organizations?

Although each LSHC organization has unique objectives for the cloud, there is a common trend of migrating crucial workloads to this domain. This migration typically leads to enhanced operational efficiency, optimized IT costs, and improved patient experience. These workloads encompass a range of activities, including but not limited to:

·       Electronic health records (EHRs): EHRs are vital for managing patient data. Transferring these records to the cloud can bring numerous advantages, including data centralization and real-time access for healthcare providers.

·       Medical imaging: Migrating storage-intensive imaging workflows, such as X-rays and CT scans, to the cloud presents a cost-effective storage solution that enhances accessibility for medical professionals.

·       Telemedicine: Cloud-based solutions offer a secure platform for video conferencing and other tools, enabling streamlined workflows and remote consultations with patients, thereby revolutionizing the field of telemedicine.

·       Patient monitoring: Leveraging cloud-based patient monitoring systems empowers healthcare providers with real-time data and enables remote monitoring of patients in the comfort of their homes. Moreover, the cloud extends its benefits to research and clinical trials, facilitating similar monitoring capabilities.

·       Claims processing: Employing cloud-based solutions for claims processing can significantly improve the accuracy and speed of the process, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of healthcare providers and organizations. Process automation further contributes by reducing administrative errors.

·       Revenue cycle management: By embracing cloud-based revenue-cycle management, healthcare providers gain effective control over billing and payment management, resulting in improved cash flow and reduced administrative costs.

Incorporating these cloud-based solutions into the healthcare industry fosters a landscape of enhanced efficiency, accessibility, and patient-centric care. The cloud's transformative power continues to reshape healthcare's future, revolutionizing how healthcare providers operate and improving the overall patient experience.

Collaboration enhances the patient experience

The migration of workloads to the cloud, especially through the utilization of industry-specific cloud solutions designed to address core business challenges and promote technology integration with industry-specific data and personalization, frequently fosters heightened collaboration among various business areas. This improved collaboration is pivotal in helping LSHC organizations identify internal hurdles, establish consensus for ambitious initiatives, and unlock additional value from shared resources and systems.

For instance, key stakeholders such as chief medical officers, CFOs, CIOs, chief digital officers, chief procurement officers, and chief regulatory officers are increasingly engaging in discussions that revolve around the cloud and the future of the patient experience. This signifies the recognition that delivering a seamless patient experience necessitates cooperation from multiple business areas across the organization, prompting these areas to understand one another's workflows comprehensively.

Nevertheless, due to years of sprawling IT infrastructure and functioning in isolated environments, operational systems and departments often find themselves confined within silos. The cloud can dismantle these silos by offering universal access to information, thus fostering collaboration, sharing crucial insights, and ultimately elevating the patient experience.

The role of integration

Integration is another critical topic in unlocking the full value of cloud and existing investments in EHR systems while ensuring improved patient outcomes. By establishing connections and gradually migrating EHR solutions to the cloud, LSHC organizations can seamlessly incorporate new cloud-native tools alongside their EHR solution, thus enriching workflows with advanced capabilities. These capabilities include the provision of new dashboards for deeper insights, utilizing AI for process automation and alerts, deploying chatbots for enhanced customer service, and more.

However, leaders may harbor concerns that vital data and processes could be compromised during the cloud migration or that new silos may inadvertently be created as workloads transition. Consequently, they may lean towards retaining certain systems, such as their EHR system, on-premises, potentially impeding the adoption of digital innovations as they emerge and delaying the delivery of outcomes that patients and providers eagerly anticipate.

Nevertheless, modern cloud ecosystems are built upon sophisticated APIs and cloud services that significantly streamline and enhance integration. Collaborating with frontline industry users and their IT counterparts allows for creating APIs seamlessly interface with existing systems while offering an array of prebuilt integrations tailored for common systems such as EHRs and medical imaging systems.

The convergence of cloud technologies and existing infrastructures through robust integration mitigates concerns regarding data loss and siloed workflows and serves as a catalyst for the adoption of digital advancements, ultimately empowering LSHC organizations to deliver the outcomes patients require, and providers expect.