Telemedicine in the Cloud Era: Prospects and Challenges

The combination of cloud computing and telemedicine introduces new opportunities for transforming healthcare delivery in a more effective and sustainable manner. A number of telemedicine applications have been investigated and developed on the cloud, such as telemonitoring and teleconsultation, all of which fully demonstrate the potential of telemedicine in promoting more affordable and higher quality healthcare through the adoption of emerging cloud and mobile technologies. The need to deploy cloud-based telemedicine has also presented numerous challenges, including how to achieve high assurance, interoperability, security and privacy, and storage adaptability. This article discusses these challenges and several open research issues, with the goal of inspiring research and development in this rising area.

[1]  Zhifeng Xiao,et al.  Security and Privacy in Cloud Computing , 2013, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[2]  Azween Abdullah,et al.  Telemedicine in a cloud — A review , 2011, 2011 IEEE Symposium on Computers & Informatics.

[3]  U. Reinhardt,et al.  It's the prices, stupid: why the United States is so different from other countries. , 2003, Health affairs.

[4]  Edmund R Becker,et al.  The financial and nonfinancial costs of implementing electronic health records in primary care practices. , 2011, Health affairs.

[5]  Thomas Friese,et al.  A Cloud-Deployed 3D Medical Imaging System with Dynamically Optimized Scalability and Cloud Costs , 2011, 2011 37th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications.

[6]  Jun Pang,et al.  Challenges in eHealth: From Enabling to Enforcing Privacy , 2011, FHIES.

[7]  Meng-Wei Hsu,et al.  A cloud computing based 12-lead ECG telemedicine service , 2012, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making.

[8]  Zhanpeng Jin,et al.  Enabling Smart Personalized Healthcare: A Hybrid Mobile-Cloud Approach for ECG Telemonitoring , 2014, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

[9]  Sowmya R. Rao,et al.  Use of electronic health records in U.S. hospitals. , 2009, The New England journal of medicine.

[10]  T. Williams,et al.  Continuous quality improvement at work: the first team--Part I. , 1994, Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality.

[11]  Boris Rubinsky,et al.  Distributed Network, Wireless and Cloud Computing Enabled 3-D Ultrasound; a New Medical Technology Paradigm , 2009, PloS one.

[12]  R. Sprengel,et al.  Split-Cre Complementation Indicates Coincident Activity of Different Genes In Vivo , 2009, PloS one.

[13]  Alan H. Karp,et al.  Fusion: Managing Healthcare Records at Cloud Scale , 2012, Computer.

[14]  T. Williams,et al.  Continuous quality improvement at work: the first team--Part II. , 1994, Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality.

[15]  Taj Morton,et al.  Location and activity tracking with the cloud , 2012, 2012 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[16]  Kevin Fu,et al.  Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses , 2008, 2008 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (sp 2008).

[17]  Chia-Ping Shen,et al.  Bio-signal analysis system design with support vector machines based on cloud computing service architecture , 2010, 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology.

[18]  Chia-Chi Teng,et al.  A medical image archive solution in the cloud , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Sciences.

[19]  Azween Abdullah,et al.  Telemedicine in a cloud — A review , 2011, 2011 IEEE Symposium on Computers & Informatics.

[20]  K. Stowman.  World health statistics. , 1949, The Milbank Memorial Fund quarterly.

[21]  U. Reinhardt,et al.  It's the prices, stupid: why the United States is so different from other countries. , 2003, Health affairs.

[22]  Edmund R Becker,et al.  The financial and nonfinancial costs of implementing electronic health records in primary care practices. , 2011, Health affairs.

[23]  Thomas Friese,et al.  A Cloud-Deployed 3D Medical Imaging System with Dynamically Optimized Scalability and Cloud Costs , 2011, 2011 37th EUROMICRO Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications.

[24]  Jun Pang,et al.  Challenges in eHealth: From Enabling to Enforcing Privacy , 2011, FHIES.

[25]  Meng-Wei Hsu,et al.  A cloud computing based 12-lead ECG telemedicine service , 2012, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making.

[26]  Zhanpeng Jin,et al.  Enabling Smart Personalized Healthcare: A Hybrid Mobile-Cloud Approach for ECG Telemonitoring , 2014, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.

[27]  Sowmya R. Rao,et al.  Use of electronic health records in U.S. hospitals. , 2009, The New England journal of medicine.

[28]  T. Williams,et al.  Continuous quality improvement at work: the first team--Part I. , 1994, Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality.

[29]  Boris Rubinsky,et al.  Distributed Network, Wireless and Cloud Computing Enabled 3-D Ultrasound; a New Medical Technology Paradigm , 2009, PloS one.

[30]  Alan H. Karp,et al.  Fusion: Managing Healthcare Records at Cloud Scale , 2012, Computer.

[31]  Taj Morton,et al.  Location and activity tracking with the cloud , 2012, 2012 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[32]  Kevin Fu,et al.  Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses , 2008, 2008 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (sp 2008).

[33]  Zahir Tari,et al.  Security and Privacy in Cloud Computing , 2014, IEEE Cloud Computing.

[34]  Yong Zhao,et al.  Cloud Computing and Grid Computing 360-Degree Compared , 2008, GCE 2008.

[35]  Chia-Ping Shen,et al.  Bio-signal analysis system design with support vector machines based on cloud computing service architecture , 2010, 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology.

[36]  David Marcozzi,et al.  Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act , 2007, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

[37]  Chia-Chi Teng,et al.  A medical image archive solution in the cloud , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Sciences.

[38]  T. Williams,et al.  Continuous quality improvement at work: the first team--Part I. , 1994, Journal for healthcare quality : official publication of the National Association for Healthcare Quality.

[39]  Boris Rubinsky,et al.  Distributed Network, Wireless and Cloud Computing Enabled 3-D Ultrasound; a New Medical Technology Paradigm , 2009, PloS one.

[40]  Kevin Fu,et al.  Pacemakers and Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators: Software Radio Attacks and Zero-Power Defenses , 2008, 2008 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (sp 2008).

[41]  Chia-Ping Shen,et al.  Bio-signal analysis system design with support vector machines based on cloud computing service architecture , 2010, 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology.

[42]  David Marcozzi,et al.  Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act , 2007, Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

[43]  Chia-Chi Teng,et al.  A medical image archive solution in the cloud , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering and Service Sciences.