“Cloud computing is an on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without the direct active management by the user.”
This technology has become more expansive as we rely more heavily on digital things. When we think of Amazon Web Services, Zoom, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. these are all cloud computing technologies. The premise of this technology is that the computing, access, and storage of data and processes can be done from anywhere even without the direct intervention by the user.
In the realm of healthcare, this offers many great benefits from lowering costs, speeding up analysis of care components (clinical notes, etc.), and more. EHRs, or Electronic Health Records, are growing in the medical field and that allows patients and doctors to better communicate and promote enhanced healthcare. The easy access to patient data from a variety of sources yield efficiency as it bypasses the need for massive networks and complex security protocols. Patients will then more quickly get information, medication, and therapies that they need.
Through the combination of health-care functions and cloud computing, things such as telehealth, virtual care, medical adherence, drug anti-theft and counterfeiting measures, resource inefficiency, personal data privacy and uniformity of medical records can be done with immense ease.
Analysis:
The integration of cloud computing in healthcare is an important acknowledgement and consideration in the design and development of health-related technologies and care.
The benefits of this technology is important to consider and its integration into therapy and use of the Neurolife sleeve has great potential. Firstly, not only can doctors see patient information, the sleeve use, the rehabilitation process, etc. it allows the patients to potentially get newly updated rehabilitation exercises, updated calibration to the sleeve, etc. quickly and allow for the enhanced recovery or increased probability of recovery for a user. Cloud computing may also give a patient enhanced autonomy as they can use the sleeve in their home and receive the same amount of care that they would get at a facility. This may also address any faults in the current healthcare system in which stroke patients don’t get the amount of rehab that they need.
I think that the integration of cloud computing for the Neurolife sleeve has a lot of potential and should be a point of consideration for integrating it into the design of the system or product moving forward.
