As the healthcare sector has moved towards cloud-based services, it has resulted in some amazing and revolutionary changes in the industry. Healthcare professionals can easily access information from a remote location with the advent of SaaS or Software As A Service.
This unhindered access to information has eliminated the requirement of hosted servers which has, in turn, has led to diminished costs and enhanced access to data and information.
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What Is The Impact of SaaS On the Healthcare Industry and Which Companies Are Leading The Way?
SaaS providers have made it easier for collaborations to happen. Companies can scale quickly and integrate seamlessly without the need for a lot of infrastructures. The industry is gaining a lot of functionalities such as hassle-free upgrades, ease of use, and a lot more.
The healthcare industry is utilizing SaaS to a large extent, and their model has an excellent adoption rate of 20% per year. The cloud computing market also has good growth potential in the healthcare sector and can reach $51.9 billion by 2024.
Covid-19 and its impact
Due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, the adoption of SaaS has been increased. The healthcare industry can no longer stay dormant and has to be open to fresh new changes and ideas. Technological adoption has been on the rise, and it is being considered one of the world’s biggest cases of technology utilization.
It might have been considered a complex or risky process, but the perception has changed now. Technology has allowed healthcare to develop and become something much bigger than it was previously. It has allowed it to transition and meets the demands of the future world.
With the help of cloud-based solutions and technology, global clinical trials have become a reality. These trials are being done using millions of data points that have been collected from tens of thousands of trial participants.
Vaccine trials for Covid-19 are also receiving a lot of help from SaaS and its derivatives. Drugs are transitioning from phase 1 to phase 3 in a matter of six to nine months. In earlier times, the same process used to take close to a decade. Even though speed is crucial in the pandemic, the procedure has brought everyone’s attention to the restrictions that are prevalent in the trial process.
Since Covid-19 trials have been a hit, the learning outcomes of this exercise will soon be used in other therapeutic fields where time is very important, like oncology and various rare illnesses.
Data concerns
SaaS has had a fast growth rate, but this has not resulted in seamless adoption of the SaaS model in the healthcare sector. Some causes behind the slow rate are privacy-related issues, data protection, regulatory compliance, contracts for healthcare budgets, and people not being adequately trained for maintaining and managing the technology.
Some people also believe that healthcare hides a large quantity of data and has a lot of regulation that acts as a barrier for adoption. But the data is not more sensitive or dense than the data held by insurance or finance businesses. These sectors were one of the earliest adopters of SaaS.
Top SaaS Companies In Healthcare
Having discussed in detail the rising adoption of SaaS in healthcare, let us have a look at which companies are leading the way.
Pespecta
Pespecta provides technology services for healthcare and makes all information flows associated with healthcare simplified. Their healthcare technology is cloud-based that organizes a complex network dynamically.
Pespecta also ensures that the member and plan information is completely streamlined. This allows them to provide real-time updates and transparency to the users. Health insurance and workers are also given their due compensation in the time since members, payers, and providers have instant access to data.
Perspecta offers a wide range of customized services that allow users to get an excellent route towards care. Their services enhance the level of care management, cost containment, and resource allocation.
Flatiron Health
Flatiron Health was introduced in 2012 and has transformed the way that cancer care providers use to collect their medical files. The enterprise supplies centers for cancer treatment that consists of tools that doctors use for tracking the progress of patients and allowing them to discover if a particular treatment is working or not.
Using Flatiron Health, medical cases can be shared with a network of researchers. The researchers can use these medical cases as a source of supplementary data. The company’s founders were motivated to create this software as a result of the mistreatment and negligence of medical problems.
The founders spent some time researching the oncology industry, and they observed that many oncologists did not have the basic tools for data analysis that were being used by other specialists.
Using Flatiron, institutions can track their compliance status and check if it is in line with the national cancer care guidelines. You can also boost your documentation and pick the eligible patients for having clinical trials online.
Practo
Practo helps you book appointments with the best doctors, get diagnostics tests done, and learn about the most reputed hospitals and clinics. You can order all kinds of health products and medicine online using this software.
You can pose any questions related to your health for free and receive health tips from health experts belonging to several fields. You can add a finishing touch to your health packages.
Some advantages of using Practo are:
- You can consult doctors any time in the day and on any day of the week. You can get in touch with a specialist almost instantly and can video visit a specific doctor.
- It is convenient to use and easy to navigate. You can book an instant consultation in less than 2 minutes. You can also have a video consultation if that suits you.
- The consultations are completely safe. Your online consultation will be completely secure and private too. It won’t be viewed by anyone else.
- Similar to what you experience at an actual clinic. You can have a video call with the doctor, and the consultation will be as if you have visited the actual clinic. You can access video consultation only with the help of the Practo app.
Zocdoc
Zocdoc has been in the healthcare industry since 2007 and has been providing a proper scheduling service for online medical care. With the help of the software, patients can discover the doctors present in their area. They can read the reviews given by other users for the same doctor and book an appointment if they like what they read about him.
Using Zodcoc’s network, you can access more than 1800 kinds of medical processes in more than 50 specialties. There are more than 5 million users for Zocdoc’s services, and their presence is there in more than 2,000 cities. This equals around 40 percent of the US population.
Users have the flexibility to run the software or application on iOS, Android, and on a web browser as well. Apart from English, you can also access the software in Spanish. In 2012, the company made advancements when it launched Zocdoc Check-in, which empowers patients to complete all their paperwork online.
Conclusion
SaaS is gaining wider acceptance in the healthcare sector and other industries as well. It has a lot of utility, and the list of its applications is growing day by day. We covered its wide range of uses in the healthcare industry. It has been a guiding force in the lives of several healthcare professionals who have been actively serving day and night.
If you run a hospital and managing it has become a tough job for you, hospital management software could be of some help. You can have a look at some of the best hospital management software and use them if required.
