(c)iStock.com/Liubomir Turcanu
The cloud has many benefits for businesses – but it is also making advances in the medical industry, becoming a vital tool for healthcare professionals everywhere. What makes it so valuable?
Better collaboration
Collaboration is vital to the healthcare industry, which makes the cloud a perfect companion in the field. By allowing professionals to store and access data remotely, healthcare professionals around the world can gain access to patient data immediately and apply the necessary care without a delay. In addition to this, remote conferencing, up-to-the-second updates on healthcare developments and patient conditions, and more, is allowing doctors to save those precious life-saving minutes.
Greater reach, especially during times of disaster
When disaster strikes, getting the necessary professionals to the places they need to be or giving the present doctors the information they need is a difficult task. Being able to consult with one another, send requests for additional resources or man-power, or simply keeping each other updated on the status of a disaster victim’s condition can be the difference between a life lost or saved.
An on-site doctor with very little experience in surgery can now have real-time guidance from an expert to perform a field surgery, for example, with all the present medical equipment transmitting real-time information from one source to the next to ensure the best work is done.
Better storage – lower cost
The cloud makes it possible to not only hold more information but to do it at a lower cost, much like when working with software defined storage. This allows even the smaller hospitals access to the kind of information they need to offer the best care, without the price tag that could either put them under or force them to make cuts where cuts shouldn’t be made.
Better use of big data to treat patients
When you hear “big data,” you likely think of businesses mining data for marketing or production strategies. For the medical field, it’s much of the same, except instead of narrowing down the tastes of consumers, big data allows doctors to narrow down the conditions of patients, comparing them to others to deliver a more focused and accurate assessment on their ailments.
Additionally, instead of figuring out how to tailor a product to be the most appealing, medical professionals can tailor their care or gain better insights on the conditions themselves, so there’s much less room for error with treatment. Big data, however, is far too big for any one server to manage; with the cloud, doors are being opened for the healthcare industry so they can take advantage of it first-hand.
Improved medical research
Much in the way big data is making it possible for doctors to treat their patients better, the cloud makes it possible via storing and sharing data to speed up the research process. With the ability to gather outside data from multiple fields, data analysts can use the cloud to pool this data and condense it into better results, allowing the medical professionals to get a clearer and more advanced image of the subjects they’re researching. These sort of advances are the kind that cure diseases and improve the kind of care being given.
Remote patient care
We’ve all heard about how the Internet of Things (IoT) is making it easier to drive your car or even make coffee, but with the cloud stepping into the medical field, could the IoT save your life? The answer is yes.
With new mobile devices being made to monitor a patient’s condition, and even applications on your smartphone making it possible to keep your doctor up-to-date on your condition or get remote consolation, cloud is making it possible for you to get high quality care without ever stepping into a hospital. If you’re unable to get to the hospital, don’t want to spend the money, or dislike visiting doctors altogether, you can use new devices powered by the cloud to transmit your condition or ask for advice from a doctor on standby, which will allow both patients and medical professionals to catch dangers early.