Cloud brings scattered showers
Jinfo Blog

By Joanna Ptolomey

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My last article considered whether the Cloud really can make a difference to information finding, use, management and sharing.  Well the jury is still out in almost every industry sector as to ultimately the usefulness or effectiveness, but there are encouraging signs that this Cloud business is not about to evaporate just yet.

Healthcare is all about people. There are people who need care, people who offer care, and people who manage the infrastructure and resources as facilitators of the care process.  There are also external partners in the process too.  This process of healthcare creates a lot of information to manage and share.  It brings information security and governance issues too.  Could the Cloud be the answer?

Let us take an everyday example in a healthcare setting – a surgical procedure.  Perhaps a complex reconstructive plastic surgery procedure or a more routine keyhole kidney stone procedure, with each carrying a degree of risk.  In order for any procedure to happen schedules and information need to be managed between clinical and administrative teams.  Surgeons, clinical nurse specialists, anaesthetists, theatre staff all need to access and review patient information usually containing large amounts of clinical and other data.  Hospital managers, cleaning staff and instrumentation specialists all need to be working to make sure theatres are available and equipped for use.  Then there are also specialist outside contractors to consider – perhaps drugs companies or specialist equipment suppliers.  That is a lot of workflow information to manage.

In a very recent Guardian article Mark Ferrar, from Microsoft UK, spoke of the benefits of the Cloud such as its linking mechanisms for multiple stakeholder collaborative working.  In particular the advantages for public sector organisations such as the UK National Health Service (NHS) and for health and social care generally.  Obviously Microsoft has their Cloud product HealthVault to promote too for which they recently gained a large London health trust as a customer.  But I do see signs elsewhere.

A recent conversation on Twitter with Canadian healthcare professionals highlighted some great general benefits.  From beep lists, to grand rounds, publications and hospital events the report was that by having an easier way to share information this makes people's lives easier and saves time – staff and patients.

With an emphasis on point of care healthcare delivery and mobile devices it looks like the Cloud, at this moment, could be offering the better service for healthcare information solutions.  However we are in the very early days of the Cloud and with the paranoia that surrounds patient information sharing we are yet to see mainstream acceptance.  A year from now, well that may be a very interesting and different story.

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