Cloud-Based Healthcare Systems: Emerging Technologies and Open Research Issues

Abstract

Healthcare is one of the most important sectors in all countries and significantly affects the economy. As such, the sector consumes an average of 9.5% of the gross domestic product across the most developed countries; they should invoke smart healthcare systems to efficiently utilize available resources, vastly handle spontaneous emergencies, and professionally manage the population health records. With the rise of the Cloud and Mobile Computing, a vast variety of added values have been introduced to software and IT infrastructure. This chapter provides a comprehensive review on the new Cloud-based and mobile-based applications that have been developed in the healthcare field. Cloud's availability, scalability, and storage capabilities, in addition to the Mobile's portability, wide coverage, and accessibility features, contributed to the fulfillment of healthcare requirements. The chapter shows how Cloud and Mobile opened a new environment for innovative services in the healthcare field and discusses the open research issues.