Cloud Computing Infrastructure in Healthcare Industry

Abstract

Cloud Computing has become a default infrastructure in the healthcare industry. In UK, there is a nationwide backbone of Electronic Health Record (EHR). Whether it is a General Practice (GP) or a Primary Care Unit or Hospital or Diagnostic Center, every establishment needs to access the EHR over the Cloud Infrastructure. Patient records are stored in the NHS Cloud over internet. In North America, especially in the US, while there is no nationwide EHR, most of the Independent Practice Association (IPA) uses software solutions available over cloud, utilizing a Software As A Service (SAAS) model. Large hospitals use private clouds to manage different units and systems such as Emergency, inpatient and outpatient services, Hospital ERP, and Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). Most of the Business Intelligence (BI) systems are available over the cloud infrastructure. In this chapter we will address different cloud system infrastructure and models.