Cloud computing has come a long way in several phases. Customers can use web-based applications or tools through a web browser as if they were locally installed programs on their own computer. Healthinformatics, the Florida State University wiki, says: “The term ‘cloud’ was coined as a metaphor for the Internet that originated from cloud figures representing telephone networks, and then went on to represent Internet infrastructures on maps. / computer network diagrams “.

Going back in time, we had Network and Utility Computing, Application Service Delivery (ASP) and then Software as a Service (SaaS). However, if you look back, the true concept of delivering computing resources through a global network is really rooted in the 60s. In 1969, JCR Licklider through his article Intergalactic computer Network made possible the development of ARPANET ( Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). It seemed to project a vision that everyone in the world was interconnected and had access to programs and data anywhere. Others credit computer scientist John McCarthy, who proposed the idea of ​​computing being delivered as a public utility.

Since the 1960s, cloud computing has evolved over a timeline. Web 2.0 is the latest evolution. The point to note here is that the internet only started offering significant bandwidth in the 1990s. Therefore, cloud computing for everyone has been a recent development. If you have to plot a timeline, it looks like this:

1999 – Salesforce.com (delivery of business applications through a simple website)

2002 – Amazon Web Services (providing a set of cloud-based services including storage, computing, and even human intelligence)

2006 – Amazon Elastic Compute cloud EC2 (enabling small businesses and individuals to run their own IT applications on a commercial web service)

2007: Google Docs (web-based office suite and data warehousing service)

There are several other factors that have allowed cloud computing to evolve. These include virtualization technology, high-speed universal bandwidth, and established standards for universal software interoperability.

Increased storage, flexibility / scalability, and reduced costs are some of the valuable benefits to be derived, as the prospect that almost anything can be delivered from the cloud is increasingly becoming a reality. However, security, data privacy, network performance, and economics remain concerns that are being addressed through various cloud platform delivery models, such as the private cloud, public cloud, and cloud computing. hybrid cloud solutions.

This brings us to the footsteps of Cloud in the healthcare sector. Whereas, as we have seen above, cloud computing has been around for decades. Hospitals and healthcare systems recently began embracing the flexibility, interoperability, and affordability of cloud technologies, especially as they implement plans to use health information technology financial incentive programs for affordable health. and clinic (HITECH) of the federal government, which exceed 20,000 million dollars.

The cloud computing model is very well suited to healthcare applications due to the volume and varied sources of information, which must be accessed quickly and from any location. After all, you have lives at stake. Whether it’s keeping health records, monitoring patients, collaborating with peers, prescribing medications, even analyzing data, we will see more and more healthcare services leveraging the cloud. With more attention to the security aspects of the cloud, compliance with data privacy standards, advanced interoperability and data sharing, and with proper DR in place, the cloud can have a real positive impact on the medical care.