Enhancing healthcare systems' effectiveness and security is a crucial global medical challenge. The healthcare industry is experiencing a significant transformation due to technological advancements such as wearables, telemedicine, augmented reality, and others, providing healthcare companies with a tremendous opportunity to introduce innovative solutions that can drive the industry forward for both patients and providers.

Cloud technology is empowering digital healthcare providers and hospitals to automate critical financial, supply chain, and human resource processes, streamlining operations and allowing doctors, nurses, and other care providers to concentrate on patient care. By leveraging cloud technology, healthcare providers can free up valuable time and resources to enhance the quality of care they provide and improve patient outcomes.

What are the challenges of digital transformation in healthcare?

Change is an inevitable reality of life. Despite this fact being well-known, adapting to change can prove to be a challenging task. The transition towards more sophisticated business solutions may pose difficulties for both companies and their customers. However, to stay ahead of competitors, healthcare providers must adopt contemporary software and provide their clients with the necessary services.

Digital healthcare transformation manifests itself differently across different regions of the world. Typically, modern software adoption is more dynamic in private healthcare institutions as compared to the public sector. Thus, the challenges of digital transformation in healthcare are numerous and include:

• Technology knowledge is not a core competency for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other hospital staff.
• The application of outdated and disparate IT systems and applications lack connectivity and appropriate implementation pathways.
• The high cost of managing hospital operations leaves little room for critical investment in IT system upgrades.
• Multiple vendors supplying different IT systems create issues with cost, efficiency, and vendor lock-in.
• There is a shortage of necessary resources for proper monitoring and maintenance of IT systems.
• High upfront costs for system renewal and complete infrastructure transition are common, resulting in lengthy deployment cycles and causing concerns about operational disruptions.
• Patient needs and convenience are often not taken into account when designing digital architecture.
• There is a lack of interoperability, data exchange, security, compliance, and management capabilities.

How cloud computing accelerates digital transformation in healthcare

According to Statista, the Healthcare segment is set to experience significant growth in the next few years. The projected revenue for 2023 is US$60.72bn, and this figure is expected to rise to US$92.01bn by 2027, indicating an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 10.95%. The number of users in the Healthcare segment is also expected to increase, with a projected 1.57bn users by 2027. While user penetration is expected to be 15.0% in 2023, it is expected to increase to 19.7% by 2027.

Digital healthcare has transformed the way we access and receive medical care, allowing for greater convenience, efficiency, and access to information. One of the key enablers of this transformation is cloud computing, which has revolutionized how healthcare data is stored, managed, and shared. With the ability to securely store and access large amounts of data from anywhere in the world, cloud computing has opened up new possibilities for telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, and personalized medicine. In this context, it is important to understand the role that cloud computing plays in the digital transformation landscape and how it is shaping the future of the healthcare industry.

The integration of cloud technology in the healthcare industry offers a variety of benefits, such as:

• Better analysis and monitoring of data related to diagnosis and treatment of different diseases.
• Massive storage resources for large datasets for Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and radiology images.
• On-demand access to computing resources.
• Sharing of EMR only among authorized physicians, doctors, and hospitals in different locations, providing timely access to information crucial for saving lives and reducing the need for duplicate testing.
• Improved data analysis.
• Enhanced tracking of patients' healthcare data.
• On-demand telehealth for remote care.

By adopting cloud healthcare computing, healthcare providers can reduce the overhead of tasks like upgrading records, and develop a proper plan for monitoring patients remotely. Additionally, cloud technology in healthcare provides new and valuable insights for different healthcare service management solutions.

Accelerating the vital digital transformation of hospitals in Vietnam

The healthcare industry has seen a significant advancement in IT applications in recent years, with the adoption of digital technologies such as AI, VR, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things.

Hospital management information systems have been implemented in all hospitals across the country, and the interconnectivity with the healthcare insurance payment verification system has reached an impressive 99.5%. As of July 2023, over 40 health facilities have fully replaced paper medical records with EMRs, and about 30 hospitals have deployed picture archiving and communication systems.

As the world becomes more digital, hospitals in Vietnam must keep pace and embrace digital transformation to provide better care, improved efficiency, and greater patient satisfaction. The healthcare industry is becoming more reliant on technology, and hospitals must adapt to keep up.

In 2019, The Vietnam's Ministry of Health (MoH) approved an EMR deployment plan, resulting in the initial deployment of EMRs in many localities. During the ongoing pandemic, IT application has also been accelerated with positive outcomes. However, several issues need to be addressed urgently, such as incomplete financial mechanisms for IT application in healthcare, a lack of economic and technical norms, and IT cost structure for medical services. Furthermore, there are incomplete regulations on IT in the sector, a lack of qualified human resources for medical IT application, and difficulties in changing the mindset of healthcare staff.

The key to successfully achieving Vietnam's healthcare goals is digital transformation in healthcare and preventive health. An initiative is being developed to provide each resident with a personal EMR, ensuring that every citizen has access to a personal doctor. A people's health portal will be established, allowing people to manage and access information about their health, and message apps will notify people about health information on the EMR system.

Smart apps will provide services related to monitoring, supporting, and taking care of people's health remotely, while management software will be deployed for grassroots health facilities to meet all the professional requirements and collect information about the environment via sensing devices. The sector also plans to develop smart hospitals and deploy EMRs at all health facilities in line with the current roadmap, which regulates the deployment of EMRs and e-payments for hospital fees.

For instance, SaaS can be used as a delivery model for healthcare apps, allowing healthcare organizations to access and use these applications through the internet without having to install or maintain the software on their own servers. This can help reduce the costs and complexity of deploying and maintaining healthcare apps while providing greater flexibility and scalability.

Final thoughts

The healthcare industry is undergoing a transformation as clients demand access to their EMRs and remote medical services. To meet these expectations, healthcare providers must offer applications that can communicate with their databases. Implementing modern cloud-based software can also help to automate many routine tasks in clinics, leading to a significant reduction in monthly IT expenses.