Importance of cloud-based healthcare systems in Australia
Powered by the dream of revolutionizing the health sector, and improving the health conditions of her citizens, the Commonwealth government of Australia has resorted to e-health systems and particularly cloud-based health systems. Health institutions turned to cloud-based tools and platforms for the purposes of storing patients’ health records and administering medication to patients (Hendrik, 2017). Patients and the Australian public on their side, have been reported to spend quite good time researching and finding from the cloud, best medical practitioners, and medications to their ailments. The end results of this transformations are huge and voluminous data that calls for innovative computing resources and tools to ensure that information integrity, confidentiality, and availability- the main goal of information security- are guaranteed. Cloud-based applications, just like any other technological development in the world comes along with technical issues and risks that have serious implications too in the absence of appropriate protection mechanisms (Alex & Eliza, 2017).
Everybody is entitled to privacy. And whenever health systems are stored on such platforms, care must be taken to safeguard their privacy. Though this information is accessible to healthcare practitioners, it must be agreed and understood that it describes an entity- the patients and is part of his life. As such, it must be guarded by all means possible so that it will not fall in the hand s of the wrong person with malicious intentions. Such threat as data breach and loss, denial of service attacks, and cyber-attacks flexibility, interoperability, privacy, organizational change, scalability and data management are among the risks that health-based cloud systems must be ready to face and fight against (Knut, Srdan, & Knud, 2014).
Medical records of patients maintained in the system will be electronically shared, to make them available in any place that they are needed by another physicist, specialist, pharmacist and the patient themselves. In order to safeguard the patient’s date, all these users will have limited privileges such that the nurses, pharmacists and system auditors and government agencies cannot make any edits to the records. Equally, these actors do not need to access treatment details.
In order to meet these system needs, then a choice has to be made over which cloud model to adopt- either distributed or central model. The distributed cloud model is a more complex cloud system that allows individual record owners to decide how to share their information, and with whom do they do it, giving patients absolute control and authority over their health records. Such models necessitate the creation of interconnection that has to be maintained by different parties. The central cloud model, on the other hand, refers to a cloud system in which data resides in a neutral location and is management by a third party (Chris, 2013).
Risks and challenges of cloud-based healthcare systems
Like mentioned earlier in this paper, data security is critical in health information technology system, including cloud-based systems and as technology keeps on rapidly evolving, more entities are casting their eyes into the powerful cloud computing security options. With this knowledge, it won’t be wise for organizations and enterprises to just choose cloud vendors simply because they need one. Healthcare cybersecurity threats keep on increasing and becoming more sophisticated and entities have no option other than looking for solutions that optimize workflow and keep critical information highly secured and protected (Elizabeth, 2016). Among the factors that an organization ought to consider before choosing a cloud service vendor to include:
- Provision of data governance and cloud access management- chosen vendors must be in a position to provide data quality tools and standards. Furthermore, rules for enterprise management and audit capabilities must be provided for a secure and stable health cloud-based system.
- Allowing enterprises to develop a 360-degree view of their patients- e-health cloud service vendors should organize and ingest data to a growing set from multiple enterprise health cloud platforms, consumer health devices, social sharing serving up to a 360-degree view of a patient’s data.
- Integration with major enterprise health resource providers- the chosen vendor should be in a position to deliver a system that integrates well with enterprise health resource provides. This integration is paramount as lack of common data definitions could make it impossible to share health information over a patient’s care continuum.
- Provision of advanced analytics and capabilities including patient analytics- hired vendors must on their own or through the help of a third party, be in a position to enable comprehensive analysis of their infrastructure performance, patients’ analysis and analytics, to ease the current struggle with healthcare systems.
- The inclusion of SDKs and APIs- vendors must be in a position to supply developer environments that will help healthcare organizations and facilities leverage the ingested data so as to be able to build and deploy digital applications including mobile experiences that can only serve to better engage patients(Kate, et al., 2017).
- Vendor strategy- this includes product strategy, go-to-market approach and availability of support services, third party eco-systems, and pricing transparency as well.
- Current offering- interested healthcare facilities ought to look at the holistic end-to-end experience of the vendors in question, patient engagement, analytics, governance, developer platforms used, system integration, and time-to-market accelerators.
Among the top e-health cloud information system vendors that have beaten all the odds to take the advantage in the market are:
This is an implementation of Connected Healthcare Framework (CHF) architectural design from Microsoft and is a free resource that provides a collection of best practices and guidelines useful for creating service, standard-based cloud systems. The cloud facility is known for its patients’ interoperability features, citizen-centric, flexibility, security, scalability, and its full support to the whole healthcare continuum that is essential in meeting both patients’, organizations’, medics and citizens’ needs (Microsoft).
CloudMine is a secure cloud-based platform that is used by healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations to build intelligent and connected applications. Their Connected Health Cloud connects all parties in the healthcare chain, giving them a powerful technology to that enables them to bring disparate data together and apply powerful analytics tools to improve patient care and support. This cloud empowers all users through the functionality of deriving important and meaningful insights through which patients and medical practitioners engage each other, leading to improved patient care and outcomes (Cloudmine, 2016).
The cloud consists of three main components: cognitive analytics, developer tools, and the interoperability engine. The interoperability engine is highly secured and ensures that organizations can incorporate sensors, wearable’s, and medical devices to the continuum, besides connecting with leading data analytics platforms that help users gain a clear understanding of patients’ data.
The IBM cloud consists of an integration model that utilizes several technologies and data analytics tools and techniques in order to draw a clear understanding of the record in question. The services are in compliance with the ISO27002 standards and its security entails end-to-end encryption in addition to the identity access management system. These features, =with no doubt places IBM as an outstanding cloud services vendor in the market (Elizabeth, 2016).
Best practices for securing patient data in the cloud
Strengths.
- Cloud-computing presets powerful capabilities in the health sector by:
- Allowing unlimited access to the [platform/service using any device that can connect to the internet.
- Enhancing user ‘mobility’-users are not tied up to one point or computer,
- Allowing sharing of patients’ data and medical records.
- Minimizing investments needed for database management and related systems,
- Creating uniformity among all user since they all have access to one software.
- The net effect cloud-based applications in the health sector are operational costs reduction, increased user support and freeing up of space and resources for implementation(Cloud Services Adoption Framework, 2016).
Weaknesses.
Just like any other technology and information system, cloud based health systems have to navigate through the ugly heads of significant risks and bottlenecks. Transiting data over to a third party, passing security administrative rights and duties too and management of a system’s availability and control means that an enterprise has zero control over the actual location of its data (Rodney, 2012). This means that a strong trust foundation has to be built, established and maintained by and between the involved parties.
Security and privacy of stored data and masked processes is another key issue in addition to error limitations, robustness and rapid response times, data availability, disaster recovery and unauthorized disclosure which could deal the involved parties a death blow.
The choice of software development approach and methodology is driven by many factors and is mainly tied to objectives, functionalities and the purpose for which the software is being built. Undertaking such evaluations requires one to be completely familiar with the project’s territory or operational environment, its frontier and all certain and uncertain outcomes (Elisa, 2005). The health cloud-based system could be built from two different methodologies/approaches- the predictive and adaptive approaches to SDLC. While the predictive approach assumes that a project could be planned in advance and a new system could be built from this plan, the adaptive approach on its flip side assumes that the project has to be flexible in order to adapt to changing needs and user requirements brought around by changing or a better understanding of user requirements (Chitu & Kevin, 2012).
The predictive model is what has been known to many as waterfall methodology which traditionally comprises of the initiation, planning, analysis, design, implementation, testing and deployment phases of development cascade into each other- taking the form/shape of waterfall, hence the name waterfall model, and assumes that various phases can be implemented in a sequential manner, without iteration.
The adaptive SDLC approach, on the other hand, assume that all phases and processes involved in software development could be adjusted as the project continues, which is a very essential aspect of software development since it is always hard to fully understand and comprehend user requirements from the very first beginning. This approach is likened to the spiral model in which project activities cycles over and over throughout the whole process and adjustments are made accordingly as a clearer picture of the project is achieved. A working prototype is produced after each and every cycle and is used as a preliminary model showing some important-though not all- aspects of the expected system.
Going by definition, the adaptive approach leads to the production of prototypes that give clients the ‘look and feel’ opportunity, engages the clients and users more than the later which has less clients, user and developer interaction, and could lead to design of a product that is completely different from what the user wanted. As such, adaptive approach to the health-cloud based system is recommended.
References
Alex, H., & Eliza, H. (2017, July 03). Australia: Healthcare and the cloud – a prescription for complexity. (R. McCullough, Editor) Retrieved May 20, 2018, from Monday: https://www.mondaq.com/australia/x/607160/Healthcare/Health+care+and+the+cloud+a+prescription+for+complexity
Chitu, O., & Kevin, D. A. (2012, January). The best of adaptive and predictive methodologies: Open source software development, a balance between agility and discipline. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 11(1/2), 153-166. doi: 10.1504/IJITM.2012.044071
Chris, P. (2013, August 12). When It Comes to Medical Records in The Cloud, Security is Not Optional. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from SecurityIntelligence: https://securityintelligence.com/when-it-comes-to-medical-records-in-the-cloud-security-is-not-optional/
Cloud Services Adoption Framework. (2016, November 18). Cloud Services: a Framework for Adoption in the Regard Life Sciences Industry. Retrieved from phase: https://www.phuse.eu/documents//working-groups/deliverables/cloud-services-a-framework-for-adoping-in-the-regulated-life-sciences-industry-verion-30-18-nov-16-11805.pdf
Cloudmine. (2016, March 01). CloudMine Launches Connected Health Cloud at HIMSS 2016 Conference. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from cloud mine: https://cloudmineinc.com/news/cloudmine-launches-connected-health-cloud-himss-2016-conference/
Elisa, W. (2005, December 02). Adaptive vs. Predictive: Is the end clear? Retrieved May 21, 2018, from the idea: https://www.idea.org/blog/2005/12/02/adaptive-vs-predictive-is-the-end-clear/
Elizabeth, S. (2016, November 25). Cloud Computing Security Vendors for Healthcare. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from HealthITSecurity.com: https://healthitsecurity.com/news/cloud-computing-security-vendors-for-healthcare
Hendrik, K. (2017). Web 2.0, Cloud and the Future of Healthcare in Australia. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from Broadcast: https://www.crucial.com.au/blog/2014/10/17/web-2-0-cloud-and-the-future-of-healthcare-in-australia/
Kate, M., Michael, F., Alex, K., Alex, C., Matthew, Economics., & Sam, B. (2017, June 26). The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Health Clouds, Q3 2017 Developer-Friendly Platforms Lead The Way With Insights-Driven Offerings. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from FORRESTER.COM: https://a.sfdcstatic.com/content/dam/www/ocms-backup/assets/pdf/industries/forrester-wave-enterprise-health-clouds-q3-2017.pdf
Knut, H., Srdan, D., & Knud, B. (2014, January 05). Proposal for a Security Management in Cloud Computing for Health Care. (C. P. R., N. M, & S. V, Eds.) The Scientific World Journal, 7. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/146970
Microsoft. (n.d.). Improving healthcare and related services through increased productivity, enhanced security, Retrieved May 20, 2018, from intohealth: https://www.intohealthcare.nl/zc/cloud/OptimizedDesktopsandDevices.pdf
Rodney, L. (2012, April 06). Cloud Computing in the Health Care Setting: Advantages and Disadvantages. Retrieved May 20, 2018, from ENTtoday: https://www.enttoday.org/article/cloud-computing-in-the-health-care-setting-advantages-and-disadvantages/
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