Title: What will cloud computing bring to healthcare? - Overview of cloud applications in healthcare

Authors: Danping Wang

Addresses: Dongwu Business School, Soochow University, 50# Donghuan Rd., Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China

Abstract: Cloud computing has been one of the most popular topics in information technology since it was defined by Google in 2007. In the past years, cloud computing has moved from a term to the real applications in different industries such as telecommunication and healthcare. Inevitably, its potential for future healthcare applications has also attracted much attention. Actually, the possible benefits including the reduced cost, the reliability and flexibility that cloud computing can bring are the important driving forces facilitating its applications in healthcare. However, as a kind of new technology and IT service model, the drawbacks of cloud computing such as privacy violation are non-ignorable. Therefore, what cloud computing can bring to healthcare depends on how it will be utilised. Correctly implementing and utilising cloud computing will offer a healthcare organisation practice enormous benefits.

Keywords: cloud computing; healthcare applications; healthcare technology; cloud services; e-healthcare; electronic healthcare.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2015.070540

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2015 Vol.15 No.1, pp.49 - 57

Received: 05 Jun 2015
Accepted: 09 Jun 2015
Published online: 09 Jul 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article