Healthcare has its head in the clouds

Every silver has a cloudy liningAdoption of cloud technology in the healthcare section in Europe will be worth $1,275.6 million by the end of the decade according to a report from Frost & Sullivan.

Last year, the European market was worth $390.5 million and is expected to steadily grow between 10 to 30 percent in the next five years.

The cloud is good for cost efficient services for documentation, storage and sharing patient information, the report said. Government moves to create healthcare information exchanges have given the cloud market in Europe and the USA a boost.  In addition, quick deployment and easier management of IT staff are other perceived advantages of using the cloud.

But the move to the cloud is being hampered by a lack of standardisation in legacy systems, meaning that data migration is both expensive and cumbersome.

And there are also concerns about data preservation, security and portability, meaning that when healthcare IT buyers sign up with cloud service providers there must be service level agreements to guarantee reliability and data portability.