Access at the point-of-care with public cloud-based EPRs
ORBIS U on the AWS Public Cloud
ORBIS U on the AWS Public Cloud
There are two key drawbacks with Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) that are managed with on-premises computer networks: the limitations to access and update the EPR, and the related IT infrastructure costs and time to support it. The on-premises EPR may not be available to care providers across different departments or sites, and procedures may have to be recorded on paper or in a different computer system for later incorporation into the EPR. This can add administration costs, and more critically can mean the EPR is not up to date at the point where care decisions are made. When it comes to IT, an on-premises version may require significant investments in hardware and software, as well as a sizeable IT team to support it.
Cloud-based EPR solutions eliminate these drawbacks and more. Across the globe, healthcare providers are embracing digital technologies to streamline healthcare services and improve patient care. In England, this digital shift is part of the NHS Long Term Plan, which includes a wide-ranging and funded program to upgrade technology and digitally enabled care across the NHS. In Ireland, the government has recently committed significant funds to invest in e-health, including the digitalisation of hospital management information systems and e-pharmacy, as part of the National Recovery and Resilience plan.
But not all cloud-based EPRs are the same. There are important differences between solutions that are hosted on the public cloud and solutions that are hosted in third-party data centres.
Public cloud vs. third-party hosted solutions
The shift to the cloud is a key enabler of digital transformation as recognised by the NHS through its cloud-first policy. The public cloud offers a host of economic and performance advantages, as well providing centralised data security, improving solution resilience and cyber security.
Compared to a third-party hosted data centre environment, for example, the public cloud offers these benefits:
- users don’t have to buy or configure the physical infrastructure for applications
- there are no limits to scaling services, applications, or resources
- a large infrastructure can be managed with a smaller IT team, reducing staffing requirements
- offers choice of operating systems
Similarly, a private cloud, or an on-premises cloud option, requires significant time and resources to set up, manage and upgrade hardware and software. Additional benefits of a public cloud-based EPR include secure access to services, offering truly mobile support to clinicians inside, and outside, the walls of the hospital, accelerated deployment times and enabling the EPR to consume other value-adding cloud services, for example AI/ML services, analytics, etc. Finally, cloud services are greener than on-premises services.
ORBIS U: Hosted on the AWS Public Cloud
ORBIS U, the Electronic Patient Record solution from Dedalus, is hosted on the AWS Public Cloud and AWS Web Services (AWS) Cloud Computing Services, providing a set of common shared platform services such as remote access, deployment automation, network security and monitoring.
AWS is a secure, durable technology platform with industry-recognised certifications and audits: PCI DSS Level 1, ISO 27001, FISMA Moderate, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and SOC 1 (formerly referred to as SAS 70 and/or SSAE 16) and SOC 2 audit reports. AWS services and data centres have multiple layers of operational and physical security to ensure the integrity and safety of your data.
Delivering the service on the cloud means that outages are no longer required to support disaster recovery testing and the adoption of security patches. This ability to continuously adopt platform releases and patches provides an evergreen service delivering improved performance, new capabilities, features and an enhanced level of resilience and security through global surveillance centre services, and with an additional layer of security at Trust and data centre level.
From a financial perspective, being able to eliminate capital infrastructure expenses and replace them with variable costs that scale to match your needs is key. With a public cloud-based EPR, there is no longer a need to order servers or other components in advance, scaling up is easy and new deployments can be organised much more quickly.
Healthcare organisations using the ORBIS U EPR can flex their data processing power at a local Trust level. Through the cloud service the analysis of transactions and processes enables compute power to be tailored for an individual Trust’s business needs. Greater flexibility from being on the cloud means that Trusts can benefit from making local choices relating to upgrades, configuration, and training. For example, additional training environments can be stood up quickly to reflect peak training periods and a Trust can choose when to do required upgrades.
If you’d like to learn more about public cloud-based EPR solutions and ORBIS, Europe’s leading EPR solution, get in touch.