Over the past few years, cloud computing has brought massive positive changes in industries worldwide, making way for a better and more efficient way to store, manage, and access data.

Today, we’ll focus on one such sector where cloud computing offers a wide range of undeniable benefits – the healthcare industry.

We’ll give you deeper insights into the current status and market value of healthcare cloud technology, its future potential and growth estimate, and the different ways in which it is already being applied in various medical fields.

State of Market for Cloud Computing in Healthcare 2020 and Future Growth Estimation A detailed report by Global Market Insights states that the global healthcare cloud computing market was worth $29 billion in 2020. And it is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 13.4%, reaching almost $80 billion in value by 2027.

The report also highlights that hospitals and pharmacies are the biggest end-users of healthcare cloud computing, followed by diagnostic and imaging centers, ambulatory centers, and other private/public parties.

The full report and these huge figures clearly show that the cloud computing market is massive in the healthcare sector. The medical industry is aware of its benefits and implementing cloud systems on a large scale.

The predicted growth rate also indicates that the future of cloud computing in health care is auspicious because it has many advantages over traditional paper-based record keeping and is also more efficient and feasible than setting up in-house data centers and private servers.

You can reach out to those records and documents from any device at any time they are needed. It’s a benefit that applies not just to healthcare but any other sector – the cloud is a fast and effective data storage and management system that is accessible 24/7.

It can be just as expensive to maintain those data centers and upscale them as the amount of data grows with time. Cloud storage serves as the cheaper alternative and eliminates such expenses of setting up and maintaining private servers. The best cloud service providers also offer different plans and pricing based on the amount of storage needed.

Here’s a simple example that will paint a clear picture – a U.S citizen vacationing in the Maldives falls seriously ill, and the hospital there can pull up all his earlier medical information to make an accurate diagnosis and provide him the best care. From dental appointments and prescriptions to past surgery records, every piece of medical record about patients can be put together and accessed by healthcare professionals through cloud computing.

As such, healthcare cloud service providers need to follow strict security protocols and achieve certain compliances such as the GDPR compliance in the EU and HIPAA compliance in the US. So the data stored in cloud systems are highly secure, protected by the service providers themselves, who are industry experts when it comes to IT and security.

So both small and large medical institutions, from clinics and drug stores to pharmaceuticals and hospitals, can easily implement cloud computing into their operations. As the scale of their business or amount of data grows with time, they can easily upgrade to higher plans from their cloud service providers.

Application of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

There are three main service models for the application of cloud computing in the medical sector.

According to the journal, cloud services need to be highly secure, but when more security features are implemented, it can make the service and overall process inconvenient for patients and customers. Increased security leads to decreased comfort for customers, and this can be justified by a simple analogy – a safe with too many locks will be more annoying to open.

So the main challenge of cloud computing in healthcare industry is to find the perfect balance between security and customer satisfaction when implementing cloud services. Given the many advantages of cloud computing, it’s hopeful that industry experts will soon find such a balance.