Global market for cloud computing in healthcare is expected to reach $5.4 bln by 2017

The cloud computing market is expected to expand by an estimated 20.5% over the next five years to become a $5.4 billion market by 2017, according to Healthcare Cloud Computing Market- Global Trends, Challenges, Opportunities and Forecasts.

The healthcare spending on the cloud hovers around $1.8 billion as of 2011 despite market penetration of about 4%.

Markets and Markets said in the report, “The market is witnessing a surge in the adoption of technology, and cloud computing is expected to bring about a revolution in the healthcare IT market.”

It also noted that healthcare companies are expected to deliver more with fewer resources, which is helping to fuel the growth in the usage of cloud.

The study states, the healthcare data has very specific needs when it comes to security, confidentiality, availability to authorized users, traceability of access, reversibility of data and long-term preservation.

The study also noted that North America is the largest market for healthcare cloud solutions.  The largest players are CareCloud, GE Healthcare, Carestream Health and Merge Healthcare.

The report also said, “Doctor’s clinics, hospitals, and health clinics require quick access to computing and large storage facilities which are not provided in traditional settings.” 

The report also said, “Moreover, healthcare data needs to be shared across various settings and geographies which further burdens the healthcare provider and the patient causing significant delay in loss of time.  Cloud caters to all these requirements thus providing the healthcare organizations an incredible opportunity to improve services.”  

Cloud computing is the use of computing resources that are delivered as a service over a network. The name comes from the use of a cloud-shaped symbol as an abstraction for complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams.