Cloud computing ‘eagerly anticipated’ by healthcare

The use of cloud computing in healthcare is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, but developed countries may miss out.

Cloud computing has been dubbed the ‘next big thing’ in healthcare IT, allowing data to be stored on servers not owned by an organisation, saving both space and money.
And a new report by business intelligence analysts GBI Research says that improved electronic data systems are eagerly anticipated in hospitals across the world - but it may not be used that widely by healthcare bodies in the US or UK.

This is because major suppliers are focusing their attention towards emerging markets such as India and China, as funding for healthcare is decreasing in many developed countries due to the global economic recession.
Post-recession growth has been restricted significantly in the healthcare IT industry, due to risk aversion and cost-cutting measures across the industry in mature markets.
For this reason, emerging economies and countries in the Asia-Pacific, such as South Korea and Taiwan, are proving to be more attractive markets than countries like the US and Europe.
According to the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, there are already several hundred vendors currently offering some form of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in the cloud, in what is a relatively new business service.
In return for a fee, the EMR vendor hosts and manages the hospital’s software and technology infrastructure.
GBI says that advantages offered by cloud computing include the reduction of costs, improved accessibility of applications and off-site management of data, which increases efficiency and security in data management.
It adds that it is a less expensive, more secure alternative to traditional computing networks used by physicians and healthcare organisations worldwide.
As healthcare IT becomes more widely used, and data storage and retrieval costs increase, more hospitals are expected to adopt cloud computing, boosting the healthcare IT market, GBI concludes.
The global healthcare IT market is forecast to grow at an annual of 9.3% to $20.5 billion in 2017.
Cloud computing and pharma
Cloud computing is also predicted to become the next big thing for the pharma industry.
Speaking on the topic last year R. Arun Kumar, senior VP of applications services at Capgemini, said its impact was just beginning to be felt in the areas of research, development, clinical trial management and healthcare information exchanges.
But he told Bio-IT World that the ‘explosion of data’ from next generation sequencing, the growing importance of biologics in the research process is making cloud-based computing “an increasingly important aspect of R&D”.
Currently, pharma firms do not have the capacity to run large datasets – especially DNA sequencing - as the size of the data can overwhelm their computers.
But cloud providers such as Amazon and Google have jumped in to house major genomic datasets, and they are now pursuing new business from life sciences customers.
Eli Lilly is one customer who has signed up to use Amazon’s cloud, while Roche has plans to adopt Google’s cloud-based apps company-wide.