This document discusses cloud computing technology and its impact on the healthcare industry. It begins with definitions of cloud computing and describes its characteristics. It then discusses how cloud computing benefits the healthcare industry through reduced costs, improved data access and security, and streamlined operations. The document analyzes the organizational advantages cloud computing provides to Westmead Public Hospital in Australia, including return on investment, competitive advantage, and customer convenience. It also discusses challenges of legal issues and data security concerns that must be addressed for cloud computing in healthcare.

1. HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
IN BUSINESS
BY USING CLOUD COMPUTING TECHNOLOGY
VAISHAL SHAH
30129756

2. Contents
Healthcare industry ............................................................................................................................3
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................3
Cloud computing ................................................................................................................................4
a) Definition: ..................................................................................................................................4
Description .....................................................................................................................................4
Characteristics ................................................................................................................................5
Relevance.......................................................................................................................................6
Report ...............................................................................................................................................7
Impact of each technology. .................................................................................................................8
Westmead Public hospital ................................................................................................................. 10
Organisational Advantage ............................................................................................................. 10
The Challenges of the technology .................................................................................................. 12
Future Prospects of the technology ................................................................................................... 14
Conclusion: ...................................................................................................................................... 17
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 18

3. Healthcare industry
Introduction
“The health care industry, or medical industry, is an aggregation of sectors within
the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with
curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care. The modern health care
industry is divided into many sectors and depends on interdisciplinary teams of
trained professionals and paraprofessionals to meet health needs of individuals
and populations”.( wiki)
The health care industry is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing
industries. Consuming over 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) of most
developed nations, health care can form an enormous part of a country's
economy.(wiki)
A health care provider is an institution or person that provides preventive,
curative, rehabilitative care services in a correct and appropriate way to
individuals, families or communities.
The World Health Organization estimates there are 9.2 million physicians, 19.4
million nurses and midwives, 1.9 million dentists and other dentistry personnel,
2.6 million pharmacists and other pharmaceutical personnel, and over 1.3 million
community health workers worldwide, making the health care industry one of the
largest segments of the workforce.(wiki)
In 2011, health care costs paid to hospitals, physicians, nursing homes, diagnostic
laboratories of the health care system, consumed 17.9 percent of the Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, It is expected that the health share
of the GDP will continue its upward trend, reaching 19.6 percent of GDP by
2016.In 2001, for the OECD countries the average was 8.4 percent with the
United States (13.9%), Switzerland (10.9%), and Germany (10.7%) being the top
three. US health care expenditures costed US$2.2 trillion in 2006(
The hospital care includes major care 45% of industry revenue. The services
provided by physicians (20 %). Other services include sectors like dental work,
urgent care, and elderly and social assistance. However of the 6,500 US hospitals,
around 75 percent are not-for-profit. Most doctor offices, nursing homes,

4. outpatient and urgent care centres, and day care facilities are run as for-profit
enterprises.
Cloud computing
a) Definition:
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand
network access to a shared pool of configurable computing
resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services)
that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management
effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of
five essential characteristics, three service models, and four
deployment models” (The NIST definition of cloud computing, 2011)
Description
Cloud computing can be used as resource for sharing online services
(without using a particular hardware or software) for user
conveniences. Cloud computing provides many features to help the
user wants: 1) ‘Applications on Demand’ means the applications are
delivered according to the specialized processes. 2.) Platform on
Demand’ means the cloud computing provides the approipate
environment for the users to work.3.) Database Source on Demand
means this application gathers relevant data and resource according to
the user needs.
Cloud Computing depends on the sharing resources and data to get
coherence and economies of the scale, similar to a utility over a
network. Cloud computing not only shares multiple users but also
reallocates on the demand. Cloud computing also provides maximum
effectiveness of the shared resources. For e.g. A cloud computer serves
the American users during America business hours with a specific

5. application, at the same time also serves Australia’s business hours
with different applications (e.g. web server) (wikipedia, 2013)
Characteristics
Cloud options are enhancing the usability across various industries in
the world; this makes it important to know some of the characteristics
of the cloud computing.
1. Broad Network Access (BNA): The broad network access includes
devices like smart phones, tablets, laptops and office computers. By
using these devices, you can solution many industry based problems.
The business management can access these devices wherever they are
located with a simple access point. Broad network access includes
private clouds that work within a company firewall or a hybrid
deployment.
2. On-demand capabilities:-Any industry secures cloud-hosting services
through a cloud host provider. We can access this service through
online control panel. We have the facility of adding, deleting users;
also can change storage networks and software as required. The terms
of subscriptions and payments will vary with each software provider.
3. Resource pooling: The cloud computing enables the staff to enter use
data within the business management software provides by the cloud
at a given point of time, from any location, at any time. This is an
attractive feature for many business offices and service of field that are
secondary or outside the office.
4. Measured Device: The cloud computing has an affordable nature is
that you have only pay for what you used. Both, the user and the cloud
provider can measure storage levels, processing, and bandwidth. This

6. nature provides transparency in terms of monitoring and controlling
usage. (Zimara, 2013).
Relevance
The cloud computing has three type of services 1. Private cloud which
means only authorized users can access it. For eg: To check a particular
patient’s record only the doctors are allowed.2. Public Cloud means
everyone can access it. 3. Hybrid cloud means it a combination of both
the private and public cloud. This includes simple stateless applications
that require no complex databases. Thus by using this clouds the
industry can function better.
The medicinal industry has been facing significant pressures to reduce
the cost associated with the healthcare, also in the adoption of new
system electronic medical records (EMR). To overcome these problems
initiatives were taken to adopt cloud computing. So the healthcare
industry slowly came to realize the importance of cloud computing.
The first thing they realized was in terms of finances. The cloud
computing applications were quiet less expensive than the existing
applications. With using the cloud computing, a new healthcare
organization can be set a new office up even the staff of 5-10 people,
with much factor of spacing and cost attached to it. The cost of location
is reduced if the server is properly maintained and also provides cost
benefit in leasing real estate.
The same organization can use robust, the industry uses standard
application managing patient records like for paying for the number of
users that is currently supports. The cloud computing also can used to
cut down data migration and complexity and resulting into excellent
customer service. The cloud providers also provide data security which

7. is very critical to the organization. This will secure the information of
patient in a transit.
The doctor uses telephone centers to extend their office hours and also
patient access to them around the clock, this can be overcome by using
cloud computing services to expand their research and compete on
even more footing with larger organization.
Report
This report will provide the impact of the technology on the healthcare
industry by using cloud computing. The advantages of the technology
on this industry, various challenges faced by the technology, involved in
this industry. This technology covers the future scope in this industry.
It also covers the summary of the report. The conclusion mentioning
the benefits, challenges and the scope in future. This report covers all
the aspects of cloud computing on healthcare industry. The report
covers how cloud computing benefits the industry. Since, making the
industry better to operate. By using the technology, the industry will
reach to a different standard to better level.

8. Impact of each technology.
1. Secure way for global search: The strongest point of cloud computing is the
adoption in health IT centres relates to data security to reach on a global search,
compared to local data supply, this industry is not necessarily less secure. It
typically improves ways to reach global way in improving the industry because
cloud providers (eg, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon) are able to devote huge
resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford, for e.g. to
the destruction caused of many medical records and legal documents in the Japan
9.0 magnitude earthquake or the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina disaster.
All kinds of security measures, such as in hardware, human resources, software
and management costs are comparatively less expensive when implemented on
a large scale by using technology. Most cloud providers replicate user’s way to
communicate in multiple places. This decreases data redundancy and
independence from system failure and provides a level of disaster recovery, which
is important on a global scale. In addition, a cloud provider always has the ability
to dynamically refine security resources for protection, prevention, encryption in
order to increase support for defensive measures (e.g. against distributed denial-of-
service attacks). This ability to dynamically scale defensive resources on
demand has obvious advantages for resilience in the medical industry.
(Eysenbach, 2011)
2. Changes in how the organisation functions: The critical impact of cloud
computing is its low cost and management on healthcare industry. For example,
Amazon charges only US $0.10 per hour for 2.0-GHz × 84 instruction set
architecture “slices” or slides of EC2. Amazon S3 charges US $0.18to $0.15 per
gigabyte-month, with additional bandwidth charges of US $0.10 to $0.20 per
gigabyte to move data into and out of AWS over the Internet. An organization can
easily get a cost-effective and on premise IT solution through cloud computing
without the requirement to buy any evaluate hardware or software, or to hire
internal IT staff to maintain and service in-house infrastructure. The end result is
that the organization can concentrate on important aspect of the industry
without having to include any extra money with in consultation with staffing and
training of the industry.
Also, the cloud computing approach speeds deployment while maintaining
important flexibility (that is rapid elasticity and ubiquitous access to health

9. resources). This capability means that, as demand changes, hospitals and other
health care providers do not need to adjust their infrastructures to accommodate
the changes this is the key impact of cloud computing. (Eysenbach, 2011)
3.Technology or organisational growth:
The small scale hospitals, medical practices, and laboratories do not have inside
IT staff to maintain and service in-house infrastructure for mission-critical
applications such as EHRs. Therefore, eliminating the new infrastructure cost and
the IT maintenance burdens can remove many obstacles to EHR adoption of the
application needed in the hands of a cloud provider essentially moves the IT
management burden to a third-party provider. From an IT management’s point of
view, cloud computing can increase the scalability, flexibility, and cost
effectiveness of infrastructure, increase efficiency of that industry.
Also, cloud computing has the advantages for popularly called “green
computing”—the more efficient use of computer resources to help the
environment and promote energy saving. Usage of ready-made computing
resources makes and organization’s needs certainly helps it to reduce electricity
expenses. While it saves on electricity, it also saves on resources required to cool
off computers and other components. This reduces the emission of dangerous
materials into the environment. This helps the industry to flourish on a global
platform. (Eysenbach, 2011)
4. Legal impact on the industry:
The data and privacy protection are the critical blocks for building the customer
trust and belief needed for cloud computing to reach its full extent. If the cloud
providers adopt better, modern and clearer policies and practices, users would be
in a good state to solve the related risks they face in any providing the services.
There are many main providers have commitments to develop best policies and
practices to protect customers’ data and privacy
Besides the provider’s commitments to this protection, some organizations, such
as the Cloud Security Alliance, have developed a comprehensive guide to deal
with security and privacy issues. The Trusted Computing Group
(http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/) a not for-profit organization, suggests
a set of hardware and software technologies to enable the construction of trusted

10. platforms. The government also play an essential and a key role by widespread
agreement rules and regulations for both users and providers. (Eysenbach, 2011)
Westmead Public hospital
Organisational Advantage
Return on Investment: This advantage helps any industry to meet its needs at a
lower cost of ownership and helps to gain higher return of investment. The
minimal capital investment using cloud computing is one of the notable feature
.Calculating the ROI for the cloud service needs some up-front work to
understand the industry requirement, control consideration. The benefit lies is
not huge investment is required, but the return on investment is good by using
cloud software as a service. By using cloud computing you can monitor the return
of investment regularly.
Increase Competitive Advantage: This advantage means maintaining its
strong position in the market and at the same time making money amongst the
competitors. This advantage can be improved by using cloud computing in terms
the way an industry firm operates and functions. The cloud computing is used as
software as a service. The cloud service can provide a new generation solution
framework for SMEs trough innovative use of cloud technology. This framework is
based on the cloud service paradigm that will provide benefits to both individual
SMEs and their partners. This service will help to reduce spending on the
resource, in where the cloud technology will provide all the necessary services at
lowest price.
Provide Customer Convenience: Running an industry or business, according to
customer’s wants and needs is the goal of this term. The cloud computing will
help the industry to understand the customer better. The cloud computing runs
on the any server, so the constraints of a server running on particular server can
be removed. This service consists of 3 layers they are: Software as service (Saas),
Platform as a service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS). Thus dividing the
service into 3 layers makes the customer service better. The main information
regarding the industry is displayed on the software. What server to provide to
display the service will be using platform. What server will be used and how are
they used are used by Infrastructure.

11. Demand from Suppliers and Customers: This is Supply chain activity that
transforms the natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished
product that is delivered to the end customer. Thus using cloud computing will
definitely increase the demand of the supplier. The better and improved service
in terms of productively, efficiency and product and other information would be
easily available. This creates a good relationship between the customer and the
supplier which contributes to a reliable information flows, and reliable demand
information flows in turn contribute to high efficiency. This includes various
processes like automated processes, time for service market, the various
Competition factors and the continuous supply chain.
Streamlining of operations: It means that implementing solutions that create
integrity, continuity and reality across the industry that makes the flow in the
organization better. Streamlining in modern times has changes, the technology or
the service that provides better and efficient service will rule the market. For e.g.:
The healthcare industry can quickly arrange for kidney suppliers using cloud
computing all the information would be provided of a person or can find
treatment to solve cancer patients , then this industry can be very useful.
Supply-chain activities depends on the Internet to transfer information
electronically, which underpins communication and collaboration between
businesses or industry along the supply-chain. Using the Internet in this way has a
number of benefits:
1. Saving money and time by removing paper transactions and speeding up
response times
2. Reducing errors in the information passed along the supply-chain by avoiding
re-keying data
3. Improving satisfaction of customers or suppliers with delivery of information in
‘real time’
4. Integration of dispatch and distribution data with product development data at
each node of the supply-chain, resulting in real cost savings.
By using all these advantage by the use of cloud technology will gives
enhancing in working for the organization. It also enhance the productivity of
the organization. It will also increase the competitive advantage compared to
other industry.

12. The Challenges of the technology
Legal issues: The use of cloud computing presents many legal issues like
contract or lease rules, the intellectual property rights, security and privacy
.Among them, data jurisdiction and privacy issues are major concerns.
For example, the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
restrict the industry from disclosing any personal health data to non-affiliated
third parties. Similarly, the Canadian Personal Information Protection and
Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) restrict the use for the organizations to
collect, use, or disclose personal information in the course of commercial
activities. However, a provider may, without notice to a user, move the user’s
information from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Data in the cloud may have more
than one legal location at the same time, with differing legal consequences.
Poor breach notification is also an critical legal issue For example, the PIPEDA
proposed a new requirement for organizations to report any material or
resource breaches to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and to notify
individuals where there is a risk of harm .Unfortunately, the breach notification
does not really protect a customer’s privacy. (Eysenbach, 2011)
Security Issue: There are a lot of content security issues in the use of IT, such as
hacker attacks, network breaks, privilege abuse separation failure and public
management interface and poor encryption key management. The specific risks
to cloud computing technology are the continuous separation failure, public
management interface, poor encryption key management.
Cloud computing is always accessible to various customers. If the provider fails to
remove the resources, it could cause very serious security risks. For example, a
customer requests to update data stored in the virtual infrastructure; as with
most operating systems, this may not result in true modification of the data or
content to the immediately effect. The data are still stored on the disk but are
just not available. In the multiple running environments, hardware resources are
reused by other customers. In this case, a third party could have access to another
customer’s updated data. This presents a higher risk to the cloud customers than
with dedicated hardware. (Eysenbach, 2011)

13. Management issues: The main challenge that any technology faces is the lack of
trust in data security and privacy by users, organizational inertia, loss of
governance, and uncertain provider’s compliance.
Trust is at the heart of the resistance that many customers have to the cloud
Concerns arise when their sensitive data and mission- essential applications move
to a cloud computing paradigm where the providers cannot guarantee the
effectiveness of their security and privacy controls.
Cultural resistance (that is organizational inertia) to share data and change
traditional ways of working is a common management challenge to adopting
cloud computing.
Finally, if a cloud provider cannot meet the requisite compliance norms then a
customer’s investment may be at risk. In some cases, certain customer services
(eg, credit card transactions) cannot be used. (Eysenbach, 2011)
Technology Aspects: The several technical challenges related to the use of
cloud computing include resource exhaustion, unpredictability of performance,
data transfer bottlenecks, and bugs in large-scale distributed cloud systems.
The low cost and computing resources available on demand are two key features
of cloud computing. However, the market is becoming crowded with large
providers. Because of high competition, many cloud providers overcommit
computing resources to attract customers. This difference between the
customer’s expectation and what the provider can really deliver presents a major
technical challenge for the cloud customer to provide high-quality service to its
own users.
Data lock-in is also an important challenge. In some cases, cloud users may have
to move data or services to another provider or back to an in-house IT
environment because the provider ceases business or service operations.
Some cloud users may require frequently uploading to or downloading very large
amounts of data from the cloud. Application users may find that there is a data

14. transfer bottleneck because of physical networking bandwidth limitation. Another
specific technical risk is that of bugs in large-scale distributed cloud systems.
When compared with in-house IT systems, the errors in these very large
distributed infrastructures are more difficult to debug. (Eysenbach, 2011)
Future Prospects of the technology
The future prospects of cloud computing will bring about mobility and
analytics that will change the face of healthcare industry completely.
There are 5 major future prospects that will lead the improve and
enhancing the healthcare industry.
1. Creating the agility for health providers and insurers:-Now- a days,
widening access has given added momentum in the markets by
increasing wealth. The countries like U.S. the government reforms
means companies needs more ability to adapt to change at a high
speed and low cost.
Cloud computing, has brought healthcare related businesses to adapt
the business models, develop new capabilities quickly and cost-effectively.
The cloud providers focus on the Business to Business (B2B)
basis, selling to employers so that they could provide healthcare
services to their employees. But, the regulatory changes meant that the
industry is moving towards a more individual retail-style and then
switch to Business to business (B2B) or even to business to Consumer
(B2C) (Grindle, 2013)
2. Providing health care anywhere in the world through secure data
sharing:-
Robust data security in the cloud will help to change the vision in the
industry. The healthcare company has traditionally been concerned
over security issues. The cloud computing stores more data storage

15. than data used in house. This happens because of a reduced surface
area which has less chance to attack. The cloud computing has the
ability to apply consistent industry across all the information. (Grindle,
2013)
3. Shifting of chronic healthcare to better patient care.
In developed countries like United State, it is estimated that around
80% of healthcare costs are generated for chronic, rather than acute
conditions. By using Cloud computing health care providers to place
remote mobile diagnostics devices in patient’s homes including cloud-based
predictive analytics. The cloud computing tries to provide
wireless solutions for chronic disease. This service will work on the
bringing of quick and immediately innovative solutions. (Grindle, 2013)
This technology are being experimented and tested in different
laboratories in different part of the world to make it more efficient and
flawless. This technology is being started to be used on a small scale on
big industry. The scenario now is that people are now getting to know
the technology and understand its benefits. The industries are trying
this technology on a trial base to know its usage and availability. The
industry using cloud is slowly and steadily publishing its name in the
market.
With the future project lined up, this will only enhance the technology
to its fullest potentiality. The technology is very deep in its own terms
like it’s has many layers. There are many types of cloud already
available. This technology has started to gain some popularity. This
technology has till to go through some developments to gain the
maximum.

16. The technology has not used to the maximum usage. The wireless
servers are still not used. For e.g. If the internet in the hospital blinks
off, the working if the industry will stop and can cause problems in the
system. The cloud computing also provides virtualization that helps
quick and easily creatable copies of the existing environment that helps
the doctors to read and understand the condition of the patient in a
better way to serve them better. The cloud computing also provides
wireless servers that will help the doctor server the patient even if the
patient is miles away. The cloud computing also work on different
computers. So will help to work on any computers.
This technology has benefited much advantage like competitive
advantage, Customer convenience. The cloud has benefited the
competitive advantage because of the cloud server cheaper to install
and with not much capital investment required. The cloud service also
use 3 types of clouds that it makes it position in the market firm and till
earn good money. The resource used to install cloud computing is not
much.
The other advantage is the customer convenience because the cloud
provides fast speed service to the customer, easy usability of this
service, not reliable on a particular server. This service also gives
convenience in terms of services, the quality of the service provided.
The service also benefits return on investment. This service does not
require huge capital to start an industry or business. This service
assures you for a good and a better return on the investment. By using
cloud you can get information about the market by accessing the
service from anywhere in the world.

17. Conclusion:
Every coin has two sides. In the same way, this technology (cloud
computing) has two sides. Let’s talk about the benefit of the cloud
computing. Cloud computing has good characteristic like Broad
Network Access, Resource pooling. Because of this characteristic, the
life of the individual and industry has increased in its own terms. The
benefits are encouraging the service user to enhance its usability, get
the best out of the service. The cost benefit has made the firm and the
individual happy and the service provides has built a sense of trust
among its users. Cloud computing has made the process of buying and
selling the service very efficient and easy.
But, similar it has some challenges to face like security issue,
management issues, and legal issues. Since, cloud computing is a public
domain, the problem of hijack other’s stuff. Copying and stealing
other’s stuff. There is a lack of safety in using this technology. But, the
future prospect are encouraging, the service providers are working
hard on overcoming the challenges which we are facing now. The
development of this technology is continuous and slowly this
technology will attain perfection.
This report speaks about the healthcare industry and the technology
(cloud computing) chosen to enhance the healthcare industry. The
technology has some benefits for the industry to offer. It includes some
advantage to make industry function better. But, at same time, the
industry has to face some challenges. This report also covers the future
of the technology to be used in the technology. This technology is

18. overall a stepping stone to makes this healthcare industry better and
good. This technology is really very useful to many other industries.
This is benefit both the patient and doctor’s life in improving the
industry.
Bibliography
(2011, July). Retrieved from The NIST definition of cloud computing:
http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf
Eysenbach, G. (2011). Opportunties and challenges of cloud computing to improve Health Care Service.
Retrieved from (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222190/).:
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222190/).
Grindle, M. (2013). A new era for the healthcare industry. Retrieved from
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-New-Era-Healthcare-
Industry-Cloud-Computing-Changes-Game.pdf:
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-New-Era-Healthcare-
Industry-Cloud-Computing-Changes-Game.pdf
wikipedia. (2013, july). cloud computing. Retrieved from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
Zimara, S. (2013, July). The essential characteristics of cloud computing . Retrieved from
http://erpbloggers.com/partners/dfc-consultants-ltd/: http://erpbloggers.com/2013/07/the-five-
essential-characteristics-of-cloud-computing/