The Cloud Dilemma !!

Cloud computing in Health Sciences

“What can cloud computing do for me?”

That’s the top-of-the-mind question many healthcare executives have these days.

Cloud computing is still in its early days, and most health organizations are proceeding cautiously to test its feasibility and determine which applications run best in that mode. While the opportunities are plenty, two key areas that are immediately visible in the health sciences are:

• Life Sciences R&D

• HealthCare Medical Records

Life Sciences: Cloud computing for life sciences R&D is growing rapidly but is still in its infancy. Next-generation DNA sequencing, by virtue of its Moore’s law-style growth in data volumes, is the single most important applications area for operation in the cloud. Amazon Web Services has put together a highly impressive package of cloud service offerings for life science R&D with a very attractive pricing structure.

Healthcare: Private health information once confined to the local networks is migrating, wholesale, onto the Internet. The fact that Google and Microsoft are heavily invested “in the cloud” extends to their new offerings for medical records services, such as Microsoft’s HealthVault and Google Health. While still in beta testing, these software giants have partnered with large healthcare providers for their programs: Microsoft with Kaiser Permanente and Google with The Cleveland Clinic.

Analysis:

Adoption Drivers: Limited funding and budgets Need for external collaboration Value driven IT-decision making Real-time	Markets: Research apps, drug discovery, workflow management (commercial), saas (academic/non-profit users) EHRs/EMRs/PHRs, E-prescribing, Financial/Billing/Administrative System, Computerized Practitioner Order Entry (CPOE) Systems
Key Challenges: Security & data governance Reliability & availability HIPAA regulations Manageability & monitoring	Players: Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Google Salesforce, Skytap, HP

This shift is already underway. Gartner has predicted that up to 15 percent of cloud computing deployments will be hybrid mixes of software and services by 2012.

In conclusion, cloud computing is here to stay. It will be the next big wave in healthcare sector and will be adopted by enterprises. However, the industry as a whole needs to answer some of the challenges and ease the enterprises’ concerns.

Best,

Tushar Gulhane