While many big names in cloud technology and services are increasingly entering the growing cloud market in Asia Pacific, healthcare organizations are advised to focus on quality. service quality and service availability when searching for cloud service providers.
In the keynote “A case for cloud-based solutions”, Dr Hee Hwang, CEO of Kakao Healthcare and CIO Veneeth Purushotaman of Aster DM Healthcare Group emphasized challenges and opportunities for cloud adoption in the healthcare landscape of APAC.
Dr. Hwang found that most of the countries in the region are using cloud services mainly from global providers with the exception of China and South Korea, which exploit local providers. methods like Naver and Kakao. These markets are also hesitant about the ability of global vendors to provide security when they are supposed to have a backup hub in one region.
In India, it is a “natural transition” from a digital-to-cloud-first strategy as the pandemic has spurred many vendors and solutions to move to the cloud, Mr. Purushotaman said. cloud.
India has a huge cloud computing market, which he says is expected to grow from around $3 billion this year to $13 billion within the next three to four years. Most of the domestic industry is said to be already on the cloud.
However, some have adopted a hybrid approach, especially for hospital information systems, based on the locations of hospitals and clinics where disruptions may occur. “Even if I have primary and secondary networks [running]they can still get into trouble, that’s why we consciously keep it as an offline-online hybrid model,” Purushotaman said.
“In a country like India, this part of the world, where the transaction volume and scale is very high, so you want to be agile enough; being in the cloud and using the cloud is the way to go. best to go,” he said.
For smaller health systems just starting to enter the market, Purushotaman suggests focusing on the service that cloud providers are “putting on the table more than just their name.”
Barriers to cloud adoption
According to Hwang, it is difficult for CIOs to adopt the cloud on board due to two major concerns. One is about privacy and security. While this may not be an issue for the top 1% of university hospitals in the country, the remaining 99% consider it a significant concern. “No one hospital can guarantee the same level of privacy and security,” he said.
Another big worry is the efficiency of cloud systems. Hwang said providers are partly responsible for the misunderstanding of many hospital executives about the cost benefits of moving to the cloud. “Many hospital directors expect some sort of decrease in gross revenue related to [setting up cloud] infrastructure, reducing the total cost of revenue by 70% or 80%. But in practice, it is actually close to, sometimes even higher than the on-site system. “
“I think suppliers need [rec]look at their strategies in selling their solutions to hospitals,” he suggested.
Meanwhile, government regulations can also be an issue for cloud adoption, Dr. Hwang pointed out. In South Korea, for example, global cloud service providers are having a hard time meeting compliance requirements with national regulations. There are two systems that rate cloud solutions for privacy and security while there are more specific guidelines for using the cloud in the public sector. “I think there is some absurdity in those guidelines, but every government has its own rules and regulations,” he said.
Furthermore, the software solutions mostly being offered in many APAC countries are not cloud-ready, Dr. Hwang mentioned. “They were originally designed for on-premises services, missing some important architectures like microservices architecture, DACA containers, etc.”
“For scalability, flexibility and efficiency, we need to have [appropriate] Currently, many hospitals and suppliers in Korea are developing native, cloud-oriented EHR systems for different types of hospitals.
Additionally, Dr. Hwang suggested that hospitals keep their data in their systems, whether it’s hybrid, cloud or on-premises. “The main point is that hospitals should handle ownership of their clinical data.”
Go into the cloud
When considering the next generation of technologies such as the metaverse and IoT, Dr. Hwang emphasizes the important role of cloud technology in data collection and processing. “For the hospital side… having a cloud system will be important in meeting the technical requirements [for enabling emerging health technologies] and make your operations efficient. “
Meanwhile, for Purushotaman, “it’s no longer a matter of whether we need to get into the cloud; it’s more important to how much of your assets are in the cloud and how much and when and when I will. make the rest go to the cloud.”
“Affordability and accessibility [of care] can only come through digitization, from which the cloud and cloud computing play an important role. “
