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The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and heightened Indias existing healthcare burden, triggering the need for action to build a more resilient health system. This necessitated an evolution of the healthcare model to contend with the challenges at hand, including a growing doctor-patient gap and lack of infrastructure limiting healthcare accessibility in remote regions of the country. In response, health and human service providers have embraced the digital transformation of healthcare, leveraging technology and MedTech innovation to deliver effective and scalable solutions with ease nationwide. In fact, data by EY suggested that 51% of surveyed health and human services organizations across public and private spheres in India increased their use of digital technologies during the pandemic.

To expedite Indias MedTech sectors growth trajectory and strengthen digital infrastructure for quality healthcare delivery, leveraging data effectively is paramount. How do we effectively store valuable health information, analyze it in the context of broader patient history, and deploy these insights to improve patient outcomes? One solution is an emerging and potentially disruptive technology - cloud computing, which has transformed the healthcare landscape by spurring connectivity, greater speed, data storage, security, and scalability.

Scaling Precise Insight-led Healthcare with Cloud Computing

Healthcare remains a dynamic field, and the role of cloud can be pivotal to processing large amounts of healthcare data in a timely manner to generate vital patient insights. This enables clinicians to have easy access to data, including patient history and best practice case studies, for research and clinical application at their fingertips. This leads to more informed decision-making, spurring faster diagnosis and more precise healthcare. For instance, insights leveraged from data, such as with AI tools, can guide personalized treatments, which are especially relevant for therapy areas like oncology, as every persons cancer and care trajectory is unique.

Simplified data sharing is key to fostering collaboration and meaningful doctor-patient interactions in the healthcare sector. Cloud adoption facilitates this and enables the transfer of simplified data from wearable technologies, such as glucose monitoring devices, from the patients device to the doctor, which can be analyzed to generate actionable insights.

There is an evident need for the quick transfer of simplified data through such cloud platforms to advance digital healthcare, such as by supporting remote diagnosis or virtual assistance in complex procedures. For instance, practitioners can easily collaborate through video streaming from Cath labs and operating theaters in real time, which supports quality care delivery. This can also be a boon to imaging, with more experienced technologists able to access scans remotely and guide local practitioners on treatment pathways for the patient.

Picking the Pace with Data-Driven Insights

Cloud computing also supports clinicians with providing faster, error-free and patient centric diagnoses. With its ability to facilitate high speed data transfers and elasticity in compute capability, such platforms are minimizing medical errors and the time taken to diagnose and deliver care. For instance, it previously took a typical computer up to six hours to process information from a CT scanner and provide a holistic image of ones brain, for a patient who arrived at a hospital with stroke symptoms. However, the golden hour or window for treatment is roughly four hours.

To reduce the time frame to getting imaging insights, the sector has shifted to adopting cloud technologies to support its medical devices. Such platforms are thus able to enable clinicians to turn data into impactful insights, and research into life-saving treatments.

Over time, cloud platforms are also being geared to provide additional services, including device protocol management and care pathway analytics, which can advance the role of AI in clinical care. These platforms are fundamental to increase everyday operational efficiency - by enhancing technological capabilities, reducing cost, time, and labor, thus easing the burden on health systems including hospital networks. This spurs intelligent processes, making systems more agile and responsive in moments of need. More so, better interoperability between systems could save healthcare ecosystems $30 billion per year. It also poses a scalable solution to effectively support care delivery in smaller clinics across remote or rural areas, as well as across multi-facility networks.

Cloud-connected systems elevate the delivery of high-quality care. To ensure best practices are maintained, this must be coupled with rigorous data compliance and security standards to ensure patient data security and privacy underscore the digital transformation of healthcare. Todays dynamic healthcare environment needs integrated, innovative solutions like cloud platforms now, more than ever.

The author is Girish Raghavan, Vice President - Engineering, GE Healthcare

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Here's how cloud computing enables the transformation of the MedTech sector - ETCIO