Making use of cloud computing for healthcare provision: Opportunities and challenges

Cloud computing has opened many possibilities for organizations that did not exist before.Among the new sectors that are embracing and/or exploring the cloud are healthcare providers.The cloud has the potential to offer huge benefits for healthcare provision but this will also depend on overcoming many challenging factors. Cloud or utility computing is an emerging new computing paradigm designed to deliver numerous computing services through networked media such as the Web. This approach offers several advantages to potential users such as "metered" use (i.e., pay-as-you-go) which offers scalability, online delivery of software and virtual hardware services (e.g., collaboration programmes, virtual servers, virtual storage devices) which would enable organizations to obviate the need to own, maintain and update their software and hardware infrastructures. The flexibility of this emerging computing service has opened many possibilities for organizations that did not exist before. Among those organizations are those engaged in healthcare provision. The aim of this article is to shed some light on this development and explore the potential (and future) of cloud computing in contributing to the advancement of healthcare provision. A small case study will also be presented and discussed.

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