With cybersecurity on everyone’s mind, there is a lot of discussion about the harmful effects of cyber attacks in the healthcare industry. While this is a serious concern with far-reaching consequences, we shouldn't forget that advances in cybersecurity can enable innovation.
Instead of focusing on what can happen if security loopholes and cyberattacks aren’t adequately addressed, let’s take a look at how a secure, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant cloud is reshaping healthcare as we know it — to the benefit of healthcare providers and patients.
Putting Data at the Center of Healthcare
The digital transformation of healthcare puts data front and center. Organizations are collecting relevant data that they can use to improve services, optimize logistics in healthcare centers and hospitals, and even provide better patient diagnoses and follow-up.
Healthcare has seen huge jumps in innovation thanks to one particular cause: the availability of a secure cloud. Making data readily available and ensuring its security has opened up avenues that patients, researchers, and administrators could never have dreamed of just a generation ago. Here are four healthcare innovations made possible by a secure cloud.
Effective Telemedicine
Although telemedicine has been around far longer than the cloud, it’s been somewhat of a poor second choice to in-person visits. In addition, very few people trusted the security of the information they shared over phone or video or the efficacy of care.
Today, cybersecurity within the cloud has closed security loopholes and created a better way for patients and their healthcare providers to share data safely. An increase in scope has opened pathways for:
- Follow-up care visits for compromised patients - Doctors and healthcare providers can monitor and update patient care without risking disease exposure.
- Virtual visits for pre and postpartum care - Flexible appointments help expecting and new mothers receive more consistent care.
- Mental and behavioral health - Virtual appointments can help reduce barriers to receiving care.
Real-time Remote Patient monitoring
Many patients need effective monitoring for chronic diseases and follow-up after significant health events. The problem is that there are many patients and not enough time for healthcare providers. However, thanks to IoT and secure edge processing, patients can send health information in real time to their healthcare providers for analysis. For example, doctors can monitor patient temperatures post- surgery to check for early signs of infection without adding extra labor for hospital staff.
The cloud allows organizations to receive this data and monitor it for anomalies or other red flags, report findings regularly to doctors, and provide guidance for patient next steps. They can lower the overall cost of providing care and ensure that patients follow through with treatment plans without the extra labor required in documentation.
Greater Automation
Automation helps remove the mundane, repetitive tasks that can cause risk because of human error. In addition, automating many of these tasks allows administrators and healthcare providers to put more time into high-touch, higher-order tasks.
Automation is made possible through artificial intelligence, machine learning tools, and high quality, consistent data. These tools are often cloud-based and made safe through the latest cybersecurity measures.
With a data operating system, healthcare companies can link together all cloud tools and systems with critical on-premises systems. This ensures that data remains available for automation of a variety of tasks, such as patient monitoring, documentation, and follow-ups.
Automation itself isn’t necessarily a healthcare innovation. However, the depth and accuracy of today’s cloud-based automation tools allow healthcare providers to revolutionize the delivery and personalization of patient care without overwhelming resources or increasing headcount. Basically, healthcare organizations can do so much more with less.
Remote Work
It seems like a story as old as time. Undeserved areas require medical expertise to ensure a healthier population, but organizations have trouble attracting and keeping those experts because of location constraints. Cloud services have opened telemedicine options, as we’ve mentioned above, but these services have also made it possible for healthcare workers to reach beyond their geographic location.
Remote and hybrid work can be significant differentiators for companies attracting talent. Whether it’s healthcare professionals or IT experts, newer generations of workers value remote work options for the flexibility they offer. Staff can be more productive while helping ensure a more positive work-life balance.
Remote work requires sharing highly sensitive data, and cutting-edge cybersecurity helps ensure that employees have access to the data and tools they need through better authentication. Improved governance and security protocols keep all these environments safe from hackers.
The Cloud — and All the Facilitating Tools — Has Transformed Healthcare for the Better
As companies from all industries switch to cloud offerings, consumers reap the benefits of greater innovation and convenience. These tools have allowed the healthcare industry to personalize and improve care while ensuring the utmost safety of our highly sensitive data.
A secure, HIPAA-compliant cloud may be the catalyst for all these healthcare innovations, but healthcare will need different solutions to support the transformation. Without a single view of their data ecosystem, loopholes in cloud security and outdated governance policies can prevent healthcare organizations from realizing the full value of the cloud.
A platform like DataOS — the world’s first multi-cloud, programmable data operating system — can help healthcare organizations continue to offer integrated services while ensuring top-quality cybersecurity. A data operating system like DataOS simplifies data and its implementation and makes it easier for healthcare organizations to take advantage of cloud tools with minimal organizational disruption to set up. It’s ready to go out of the box and offers companies the final piece of their digital transformation solution.
To find out more about how DataOS can transform your security and governance, download our white paper, Data Security and Governance in DataOS.”
