The healthcare cloud computing market is growing rapidly at a CARG (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of around 17.2%. Globally, starting from a valuation of USD 35.61 billion in 2022, it is estimated to surge past an impressive USD 127.04 billion by 2030.

This trend indicates that an increasing number of healthcare organizations are rapidly embracing cloud technology. Having a cloud-based solution can offer cost-effectiveness, scalability, data security, and much more. As healthcare organizations increasingly embrace cloud technology, one critical area experiencing a significant impact is healthcare data archiving.

Traditionally, healthcare data archiving has been a resource-intensive and often complex process. However, today, cloud-based archival solutions offer a transformative approach, making it essential for your organization to recognize the advantages of cloud computing during healthcare data archiving.

In this article, we’ll discuss the top 10 reasons why you should consider adopting a cloud-based archival solution. These reasons will help you understand how healthcare cloud computing can be a game-changer for your organization.

 

The top 10 reasons are: 

  • Scalability and Flexibility
  • Cost-Efficiency
  • Data Retrieval and Access
  • Data Life Cycle Management
  • Data Governance and Indexing
  • Long-Term Retention
  • Data Security and Compliance
  • Data Redundancy and Durability
  • Data Reporting and Analytics
  • Data Sharing and Collaboration

 

These categories will help you understand the overall benefits of a cloud archive, especially in terms of its impact on healthcare operations and workflow. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

 

1)    Scalability and Flexibility

The healthcare industry usually deals with a lot of complex data. It‘s currently seeing exponential growth of unstructured and structured data. To manage that, healthcare organizations need a storage capacity that is both scalable and flexible. With the cloud archive, seamlessly expand your organization’s storage resources and add additional data without the need for any more hardware or infrastructure.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Organizations can handle increased patient data volumes without making more investments.
  • Support remote patient care with flexible data storage.

 

2)    Cost-Efficiency

Anyone in the healthcare business knows that budgets are stretched thin, especially if you’re an organization like a rural health clinic or community health center. Also, traditional data storage solutions are expensive to maintain. Eliminate hardware investments and maintenance costs by moving to a cloud solution, which is usually more cost-effective compared to other storage solutions.

Advantages to Consider:

  • Redirect funds from infrastructure to patient care.
  • Reduce the overall costs of maintenance, hardware and software, licenses, and human resources associated with your legacy systems.

 

3)    Data Retrieval and Access

Healthcare professionals usually require quick access to patient and diagnostic data. However, a storage platform that cannot retrieve data quickly can negatively impact patient care. Not only that, but your physician may even face burnout and waste important time searching for data, rather than focusing on patients. Cloud technology helps you (and them) access data easily, efficiently, and securely from anywhere with an internet connection.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Access patient clinical and financial records from anywhere.
  • Make faster and more timely decisions.
  • Access data during emergencies.

 

4)    Data Life Cycle Management

Healthcare organizations deal with constantly growing data, but cannot eliminate it due to statutory retention laws. With the cloud-based EHR archive, your organization can control its data retention, migration, archival, and purging processes. You can even meet compliance requirements, and optimize storage costs by effectively managing your data throughout its lifecycle.

 Advantages to Consider:

  • Meet regulatory requirements.
  • Avoid storage costs for outdated data.
  • Improve data quality and management.
  • Ensure compliance with legal requests.

 

5)    Data Governance and Indexing

Disorganized data can be a huge problem for healthcare professionals, as it can be time-consuming to search for specific patient records and the added effort can lead to staff burnout. A cloud-based archival solution offers governance features such as indexing and tagging. This drives easy and efficient search results.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Quickly find specific patient records.
  • Ensure complete and accurate categorization. 

 

6)    Long-Term Retention

Healthcare organizations commonly store data for a long time. This could be necessary to meet statutory retention requirements. The cloud is purpose-built  for the secure and long-term preservation of healthcare data. Your organization can use it to retain and access historical patient records, and medical data for an extended period.

Advantages to Consider 

  • Maintain patient continuity of care.
  • Support historical research.
  • Retain legacy data for long-term access.

 

7)    Data Security and Compliance

Data breaches in healthcare are a serious issue. They can cause an organization to pay millions of dollars in fines and damage its credibility. So, organizations must ensure that no compromise is made in security and that all statutory compliance requirements are met. Cloud storage empowers you with all the robust security measures and compliance certifications needed to safeguard patient data. It also includes features such as encryption, access control, and audit trails, among others.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Meet HIPAA and other data protection regulations.
  • Enhance security and reduce data breach risks.
  • Audit and monitor data for compliance.

 

8)    Data Redundancy and Durability

Hardware failures or disasters pose a significant risk to healthcare organizations. It’s especially bad as these can lead to data loss, and, in turn, negatively affect operational workflows and patient care. Cloud-based archival solutions offer your organization high data redundancy and durability by maintaining multiple copies of your data across various data centers.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Protect data against failures or disasters.
  • Ensure reliable data accessibility.
  • Minimize the risk of data loss.

 

9)    Data Reporting and Analytics

Reports and analytics play an important role in viewing data, extracting insights, and making informed decisions. A cloud-based archive provides you with extensive reporting capabilities and analytics tools. Optimize your patient care strategy, resource allocation, and operational efficiency by using analytics tools such as Power BI to gain valuable insights from your data.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Improve patient outcomes.
  • Make informed decisions.
  • Offer high-quality care.

 

10)  Data Sharing and Collaboration

Healthcare organizations often encounter challenges when trying to collaborate or share data. A cloud archive integrates with the new system and authorizes users to access and work on patient records in real-time. Additional benefits include care coordination, reduced communication gaps, and access to data when needed.

Advantages to Consider: 

  • Exchange vital patient data seamlessly.
  • Improve patient care coordination.
  • Reduce diagnostic errors.

 

With the deployment of a cloud archive, your organization seamlessly enhances its data management workflow and operations, protecting data and empowering users, all while lowering costs.

Interested in selecting a cloud-based archive?

Triyam’s cloud-based archival solution, ‘Fovea EHR Archive,’ helps healthcare organizations extract, archive, and store their data in a single source of truth. It is available on the cloud and on-premise.