Historical
ADA TR 1091-2017
Cloud Computing: Implications and Recommendations for Dental Practice
Dentists today see a surge in dental cloud computing and countless mobile apps are now available for both dental professionals and our patients. In many ways, this is reminiscent of the initial explosive growth in microcomputer dental systems and a turbulent marketplace for dental computer systems in the 1980s. Over the past several decades while the dental computer marketplace stabilized, our society began a transition from stand-alone computer systems to client-server systems and to enterprise computing, increasingly expanding people’s access to information and computing capabilities. The Cloud is the latest step along that transition, the newest frontier in information management and technology. Cloud Computing is what we have come to consider as accessing remote computing capabilities and information using computers and hand-held mobile devices through a network. Dental practitioners may see considerable benefit from the use of cloud computing in research and industry. The ability to aggregate and analyze data from many sources is already providing clinicians with more information to assist in decision making. The growth of cloud computing in healthcare over the past few years has been widely reported. Bartels and Rymer at Forrester, for example, found growth of the cloud computing market at nearly $100 billion exceeds predictions of just a few years ago by 20%. In 2015 the US and Canadian healthcare and life sciences cloud computing market was reported to be $4.49 billion and expected to reach $11.43 billion by 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.5%. Likewise the global Mobile Health (mHealth) market, including remote monitoring, diagnosis and consultation, treatment, medical reference, personal health records, diagnostic apps, and continuing medical education is predicted to reach $49.2 billion by 2020. Yet such market reports are meaningless to dentists who need information on what cloud computing can do for us, what are the issues, and whether it makes business sense for our practices. A growing number of articles in the dental trade press discuss these points.4,5 This report distills down the mass of currently available information about cloud computing and data storage. The intent is to provide the essential information dentists need to make informed decisions about which cloud capabilities are appropriate for their practice and about what cloud computing issues they should consider.
Content Provider
American Dental Association [ada]
