Cloud Asset Management for Hospitals

An analysis of cloud adoption strategies for healthcare facilities, demonstrating how SaaS-based platforms can modernize hospital IT infrastructure while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

Abstract

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of computing services, including applications, data storage, and data processing, over the internet. One of the main advantages of cloud computing is the pay-as-you-use model, which allows organizations to consume resources on demand rather than investing in expensive IT equipment upfront. This approach helps lower operating costs and enables flexible scaling. In this paper, we analyze the benefits and challenges of cloud adoption for a hospital healthcare facility. We focus on the specific requirements of a typical 200-bed medical center, examine cloud service and deployment models best suited for healthcare, and present a case study of CareNow, a real-time asset management platform, to demonstrate how cloud-based solutions address operational needs in a hospital environment.

Key Contributions

  • Analyzed the product, technical, and operational requirements of a typical 200-bed medical center serving 500,000+ patients, mapping them to appropriate cloud service models (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS)
  • Recommended SaaS as the optimal deployment model for hospitals that lack deep IT expertise, offloading infrastructure management, security, and compliance to specialized providers
  • Identified key benefits of cloud adoption for healthcare: real-time device tracking via IoT, improved availability, inventory management, automated backups, HIPAA compliance delegation, and elastic scalability
  • Presented a CareNow case study showing measurable operational improvements, including reduced device search time (previously up to 90 minutes/day), real-time visibility across the entire device fleet, and video tracking to reduce theft
  • Evaluated challenges including internet dependency, data privacy and segregation concerns, vendor lock-in risks, and staff training requirements for cloud system adoption
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  • arXiv / TechRxiv: to be added

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