Healthcare Services in the Cloud -- Obstacles to Adoption, and a Way Forward

Cloud computing has been receiving a great deal of attention during the past few years. A major feature of public cloud services is that data are processed remotely in unknown systems that the users do not own or operate. This context creates a number of challenges related to data privacy and security and may hinder the adoption of cloud technology in, for example, the healthcare domain. This paper presents results from a stakeholder elicitation activity, in which the participants identified a number of obstacles to the adoption of cloud computing for the processing of healthcare data. We compare our results with previous studies and outline accountability as a possible way forward to increase the adoption of cloud services in the healthcare domain.

[1]  Edward F. McQuarrie,et al.  Focus Groups: Theory and Practice , 1991 .

[2]  Vladimir Trajkovik,et al.  Security and Privacy Issues and Requirements for Healthcare Cloud Computing , 2012 .

[3]  Janet Mancini Billson,et al.  Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research , 1989 .

[4]  Miguel López-Coronado,et al.  Analysis of the Security and Privacy Requirements of Cloud-Based Electronic Health Records Systems , 2013, Journal of medical Internet research.

[5]  Sanjay P. Ahuja,et al.  A Survey of the State of Cloud Computing in Healthcare , 2012, Netw. Commun. Technol..

[6]  K. S. Khadke,et al.  Survey on Distributed Accountability for Data Sharing in the Cloud , 2014 .

[7]  Kuo Mu-Hsing,et al.  A Healthcare Cloud Computing Strategic Planning Model , 2012 .

[8]  Jameela Al-Jaroodi,et al.  e-Health Cloud: Opportunities and Challenges , 2012, Future Internet.

[9]  Andrew Charlesworth,et al.  Accountability as a Way Forward for Privacy Protection in the Cloud , 2009, CloudCom.

[10]  A. Kuo.  Opportunities and Challenges of Cloud Computing to Improve Health Care Services , 2011, Journal of medical Internet research.

[11]  Karin Bernsmed,et al.  Deploying Medical Sensor Networks in the Cloud - Accountability Obligations from a European Perspective , 2014, 2014 IEEE 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[12]  Siani Pearson,et al.  Toward Accountability in the Cloud , 2011, IEEE Internet Computing.

[13]  JeongGil Ko,et al.  Wireless Sensor Networks for Healthcare , 2010, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[14]  Paul T. Jaeger,et al.  Cloud Computing and Information Policy: Computing in a Policy Cloud? , 2008 .

[15]  W. Liu,et al.  e-Healthcare cloud computing application solutions: Cloud-enabling characteristices, challenges and adaptations , 2013, 2013 International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC).

[16]  Jit Biswas,et al.  Processing of wearable sensor data on the cloud - a step towards scaling of continuous monitoring of health and well-being , 2010, 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology.

[17]  Nabil Ahmed Sultan,et al.  Making use of cloud computing for healthcare provision: Opportunities and challenges , 2014, Int. J. Inf. Manag..

[18]  Maya Daneva,et al.  Evaluating cross-organizational ERP requirements engineering practices: a focus group study , 2010, 2010 Fourth International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS).

[19]  Herbert Burkert,et al.  Some Preliminary Comments on the DIRECTIVE 95/46/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. , 1996 .

[20]  David C. Yen,et al.  An exploratory study to understand the critical factors affecting the decision to adopt cloud computing in Taiwan hospital , 2014, Int. J. Inf. Manag..