How the Cloud Boosts Innovation and Interoperability

by Scott Whyte, Advisor & Former Chief Strategy Officer, ClearDATA
Originally published April 23, 2018 at healthdataanswers.net

While attending the recent HIMSS conference, I had the pleasure of getting to visit with Carol Flagg of HealthcareNOW Radio to talk about how the cloud is helping promote innovation in healthcare. You can stream that ‘HIMSS Highlight’ conversation below.

It’s always exciting to get to talk about the innovations happening in healthcare. One example I mention is an academic medical center that is measuring disease progression in multiple sclerosis. They’re using an iPad that’s running an affordably-built app that is now being rolled out to sister academic centers across the U.S., and serving organizations in Europe as well. I also share the story of a behavioral health company that was growing very rapidly but had legitimate concerns about how to scale securely.

The cloud was the right answer for these folks, and it’s also a great solution for so many others as we all wrestle with value-based care and interoperability needs. There are powerful native services in the cloud including messaging, queueing, alerting, analytics services, and many more. In addition, some advanced solutions are available to enable advanced health information exchange. That’s a great tool for interoperability and one I took advantage of when I was an IT VP of a multi-state hospital system.

The move to value-based care, an important move to improve outcomes, is helped considerably by the cloud because the cloud can actually serve as a Switzerland of sorts. It’s a secure, and neutral place for payers and providers to share information that was previously held in siloes. Even previously competing entities can find value in safely collaborating in the cloud.

These are exciting times for healthcare. The cloud is providing abundant opportunities for innovation and collaboration as we all work to drive to better outcomes in healthcare.