Consumerism has escalated in healthcare, in large part due to our ability to access information found in our digital devices. Patients are now more educated about what provider to choose, and they come to appointments armed with more knowledge about their possible disease modality than at any time in history.

The American healthcare paradigm is in the process of capitalizing on cloud computing service models to shift workflows to accommodate these new trends.  The new digital consumer is wearing devices that track their activity, and they’re reading reviews and commenting on their experiences with providers and their facilities. A whole new group of services has emerged around this trend – from IoT sensors that monitor diabetic insulin spikes to telemedicine.

This article looks more closely at how the new cloud computing service models are changing both the business and treatment models for medical practices and hospitals around the country.

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Cloud Computing Service Models and Consumer Behavior

Mobile IT applications and IoT devices are the new healthcare rage. Consumers can now leave a hospital with a wearable tracking device that helps doctors track vital signs, activity, or other medical data which is transmitted via cloud computing service models for physician analysis.

The Cloud Standards Customer Council praises these trends in a 2017 report on cloud computing service models:

By enabling consumers both to own and have access to their health-related data, digitization has eliminated the information asymmetry that long has benefited health system incumbents, particularly providers and payers/insurers, and has inhibited the evolution of an informed healthcare consumer.

A standardized feature benefit of cloud computing service models is access – and consumers in the digital era are hooked on its convenience and flexibility. One model that has arisen recently in healthcare is telehealth, which has taken the traditional face-to-face examination and turned it into a video conference call. From the government program of Medicare to start-up healthcare companies, it seems every health system has or is working toward a telehealth model. In fact, Healthcare IT News survey of leading health providers in 2017 said 44% of their organizations were exploring telehealth as a service offering this year.

In the meantime, behind the scenes, pundits are predicting that the on-premise data centers that used to make up the backbone of all IT services in healthcare are going to embrace cloud computing service models even further by migrating all that data into the cloud. Healthcare IT News reports that the healthcare data center of the future will be primarily adapted to cloud computing models.

Cloud Computing Service Models for Healthcare’s Future

Across the healthcare landscape today, c-suite executives are replacing or improving their traditional IT structures with digital and cloud computing models. Consumers have more access to providers and healthcare providers now have a way to monitor consumers in real-time. For the consumer, this potentially means better outcomes as physicians incorporate a 360-degree view of the patient into treatment plans. Hospitals and health systems will continue to benefit from the scalability, flexibility, and cost savings inherent in cloud computing service models.

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