International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication (ICSPC’17) – 28th & 29th July 2017
A Comparitive Study on Traditonal Healthcare
System and Present Healthcare System Using Cloud
Computing and Big data
Manikandan Shanmugam
Department of Computer Science
Christ University,
Bangalore, India
manikandanshan42@gmail.com
Abstract— Cloud computing is one the emerging
technology which provides all the necessary resources
required for day to day operations of an organization in a
virtual environment. It is also known as green computing
as it reduces the physical existence of the hardware
resources. Health is being considered as a basic right for
an individual. Even though there are advancements in the
healthcare sector of India when compared to earlier stages,
there is still a need for betterment in this sector. In order
to make progress in this field, constant learning and better
economic standards are needed. This paper provides a
comparative view of the progress made by India in the
healthcare sector after the introduction of two major
technologies such as cloud computing and big data.
Keywords—Big data, Cloud Computing, Healthcare,
Developing countries.
I. INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is a computing technology which provides
computing resources on demand. It can also be considered as a
system which provides self-service internet infrastructure to
the users so that they can access the provided resources
anywhere and anytime with the help of an internet connection.
Data which is stored in the database has no restriction on its
size, big data can be considered as a set of tools and
techniques such as Hadoop employed within the data in the
database in order to perform data analyzing operations. The
processing of data should be completed within a certain span
of time correctly and efficiently [7][9].
The healthcare sector in India provides high-quality treatment
at a lower cost when compared to other developing countries
India follows the most trustworthy and efficient healthcare
system. India still has differences between the quality of
treatment provided in private sector hospitals and public sector
hospitals. Indian constitution clearly states to provide equal
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ECE Programme, Karunya University
Prof. Monisha Singh
Department of Computer Science
Christ University,
Bangalore, India
monisha.singh@christuniversity.in
medical rights to all its people, but the way in which the
treatment is provided matters today. India has seen various
medical advancements over the past few years. By having a
comparative knowledge on the various technologies available
in the healthcare sector, the people of developing countries
can make use of them in an efficient manner [8].
When these two popular technologies are integrated and made
available in the healthcare platform, numerous results can be
derived which will ultimately lead to an efficient growth in the
healthcare sector.
Types of Cloud services:
Software as a Service: SAAS is a software application which
can be accessed anytime and from anywhere across the globe
with the help of an internet connection.
Platform as a Service: PAAS provides a development
environment which is browser based. The main functionality of
this service is that it allows a developer to create a database and
make modifications in the application code.
Infrastructure as a Service: Cloud provider offers hardware
which acts like a virtual machine which the end user can use.
The service can be made available with all the necessary
firewalls, load balancers, and networks.
Types of Cloud:
Public Cloud: This type of cloud provides system and services
that can be easily accessed by the general public with the help
of an internet connection. This cloud is meant for public use
(Example: Google Drive).
Private Cloud: This type of cloud allows systems and
services that can only be accessed within an organization. This
type of cloud is meant for private use (Example: Cloud used by
HP which is accessible only by their employees).
Hybrid Cloud: It is a combination of a private and public
cloud. Some of the activities can be accomplished using public
cloud while other activities which do not require the use of
 International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication (ICSPC’17) – 28th & 29th July 2017
public cloud can be accomplished with the help of private
cloud.
As India is considered to be one of the fastest growing
developing countries, a comparative study is needed in order
to identify the variously implemented features and research
gaps, so that future work can be carried on.
II. RELATED WORK
A. Oppurtunities and Challenges of Cloud Computing to
improve Healthcare services
This paper mainly discusses the various concepts and
techniques available in cloud computing, its applications in the
healthcare sector, ways to implement proper planning when the
organization decides to move its model of service, the present
opportunities and challenges that exist in cloud computing and
healthcare sector.
Cloud computing provides three major services, namely SAAS
(Software as service), PAAS (Platform as Service), IAAS
(Infrastructure as service). In order to deploy cloud computing,
there is a need to deploy four major cloud models namely,
private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud and community
cloud. This paper mainly focuses on four aspects of
management namely legal aspect, security aspect, technology
aspect and management aspect, by considering these aspects
the organization can get a clear view of whether or not to
migrate from traditional healthcare services to cloud-based
healthcare services [7].
Various aspects:
Management aspect:
Opportunity:
One of the primary advantages of cloud computing is that it
can offer useful services to the organization or the end user at a
minimal cost, Amazon Web Service [AWS] offers its services
to users at a cost of $0.1 per hour. Instead of purchasing a
hardware or software, the organization can make a cost-
effective move by purchasing the cloud services and making it
available in a virtual environment, this would result in hiring
lesser manpower to manage and maintain the hardware and
software resources. So the organization by adopting the cloud
technology can focus and spend its capital on critical tasks
rather than spend it on additional costs. By adopting the cloud
services, the flexibility, and maintainability of the organization
increases [7].
Challenges:
The primary challenge that cloud is facing in today’s market is
data security and data privacy issues. In order to gain customer
credibility, the organization should gain the customer’s trust.
Customer trust can be gained by providing them with proper
and well-secured security system. In worst case scenarios the
customer might file a complaint against the organization during
data theft [7].
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ECE Programme, Karunya University
Technology aspect:
Opportunity:
In order to manage important medical applications, hospitals
hire separate IT staffs to manage and maintain them. But in the
case of smaller hospitals and laboratories, they can adopt cloud
computing technology in order to avoid them from hiring
external staff support, by doing this maintenance cost and
infrastructure cost can be reduced. Another emerging cloud
computing technology is green computing, which means
making use of computer resources in such a way that it not
only saves energy but also avoid global warming [7].
Challenges:
In order to sustain competition, the cloud providers indulge in
offering excessive cloud services at the lower cost which might
indirectly lead to resource exhaustion. Another major challenge
in cloud market is data lock-in when the service provider
decides to lock-in his/her cloud services, the cloud customers
will be forced to move their data to another platform [7].
Security Aspect:
Opportunity:
When compared to the traditional methods of maintaining
healthcare records, by adapting to cloud technology better data
security can be ensured across multiple platforms. When the
security measures such as hardware resources, software
resources, and management cost can be reduced drastically
when implemented in large scale. Example: Microsoft Health
Vault application ensures maximum security and provides
efficient cloud healthcare services to its users [7].
Challenges:
Security is always considered to be a myth, even though the
organizations hopes to provide a high-end security service and
protect its user data, there is still a lot of chances for data theft.
Hackers gain access to the organizational health related data
due to inappropriate password protection and poor encryption
methods. Cloud technology is usually multiuser environment
so the organization should ensure proper security mechanisms
are provided to protect its user data [7].
Legal Aspect:
Opportunity:
In order to build customer trust, the organization should
provide maximum security features to protect the customer
data. This can be done by setting up proper management
policies and practices and making sure that they follow it at any
cost. There is a non-profit organization known as The Trusted
Computing Group which provides efficient software and
hardware technologies to build trusted platforms [7].
 International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication (ICSPC’17) – 28th & 29th July 2017
Challenges:
There are many legal issues which the cloud providers face due
to the negligence of customer trusts such as intellectual
property rights, contract law, and data jurisdiction. Another
major privacy issue is poor breach notification. The cloud
environment allows its storage and network to be shared across
multiple users, so the organization should cover and protect
user data by providing maximum data security.
B. Indian and Saudi Arabian healthcare systems: A
Comparative Study.
This paper mainly focuses on the healthcare system followed in
Indian and Saudi Arabian countries, the main fact of
considering these two countries is that they have a high
development rate in the healthcare sector over the past few
years. The traditional system of medication still prevails in
both these countries. In India, the private sector of healthcare
systems dominates whereas in Saudi the government sector of
healthcare systems dominates over the private sector. This
paper empathizes on the importance of the healthcare services
and the quality of the services being provided to the citizens of
a country, it also discusses the weaknesses and strengths in the
healthcare systems followed in both of these countries [9].
C. A survey of Cloud based healthcare system.
This paper provides a detailed survey on the ways of
integrating the present healthcare system with the modern
concepts such as cloud computing and social media. This paper
mainly focuses on three aspects namely integration of
healthcare system with the public cloud, integration of
healthcare system with private cloud and the integration of
healthcare system with social media. In order to avoid direct
communication between the doctors and the patients, the paper
proposes the concept of social media, so now the patients can
easily communicate with the doctors over a network without
any hassle [8].
Various integration methods:
Integration of healthcare system with public cloud:
Ambulatory ECG monitoring is an android and IOS based
medical application which helps the medical personnel to
provide proper diagnosing procedure with the help of their
smartphones, the ECG data is collected with the help of Kardia
board and made available to user in their smartphone, the data
which is being collected will be stored in public cloud and
analyzing operations takes place. This application provides a
real-time view of patient’s health-related data to their doctors.
The limitation with this proposed system is that it is not web
based, it is only available to the smartphones users [1]. In the
paper [2], the authors have proposed a wearable device that
collects the user’s heartbeat data with the help of sensors
attached to their body. Once the data is collected it is stored in
cloud storage and made available for processing. The proposed
system uses a java based application for processing the user’s
health-related data and making it available to the user at the
right time, for visualization purpose google charts are made use
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of. In the paper [4], the authors proposed a cloud model which
connects the various medical institutions across Malaysia to
exchange information across them. The medical applications
can be loaded and deployed into the cloud environment
dynamically whenever and wherever needed with the help of
an internet application. In order to manage the medical
applications, HIMS(Hospital Information Management
System) is hosted into the cloud. TCLOUD [5] is another cloud
integrated healthcare system where all the patients and medical
personnel’s are connected to obtain cloud services. The various
services provided are sleep monitoring, drug therapy
management and physical activity management of patients.
TCLOUD service is implemented as Infrastructure as Service
(IAAS).
Integration of healthcare system with private cloud:
Private cloud is mainly intended for the organizational purpose,
a social network called DCP [6] helps in communication
between doctors, patients, specialists, and clinics. Two
algorithms are proposed under this model, in the first algorithm
working group list of the proposed network is integrated with
Swedish National Project, in the second algorithm, it enables
the user to search for the proposed network called DCP using
certain criteria like the nearest location or distance.
Integration of healthcare the system with social media:
When the patients are provided with the right treatment, the
recovery process becomes faster and efficient. In the paper [3] ,
communication between the patients and doctors is improved
by establishing the connection using social media networks
such as Facebook and Twitter. It creates a forum such that the
communication can exist between the patients as well as
between the doctors. Doctors can exchange information such as
the type of treatment to undertake or regarding the type of
patient they are handling with the other doctors. The patient
can exchange motivational thoughts so that a sense of trust and
friendship is established between the patients [3].
D. A scoping review of Cloud Computing in healthcare.
This paper explains the various fields in which cloud
computing is used in healthcare sectors such as genomics,
proteomics, and molecular medicines. Cloud computing is a
popular term in healthcare sector but the progress achieved
through successful implementation of cloud computing in this
sector is less, still, there is a board scope of research left in this
area to work on with. The main threat caused by cloud
computing in the healthcare sector is by involving external
cloud partners such as data theft and security issues. This paper
identifies, the hot research topics in the cloud computing and
health care and discusses the various applications of the cloud
technology in healthcare [10].
III. COMPARATIVE STUDY
Most of the healthcare systems present in the developing
countries such as India, Iraq, Indonesia etc. still rely on a
system which is paper based so the patient is not able to derive
 International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication (ICSPC’17) – 28th & 29th July 2017
efficient healthcare services .In order to bring a change in this
sector, the technology majorly relies on cloud computing and
big data. The change can be introduced by making the data
available in form of a central storage and making it available
to the physicians and the patients at the right time, for this we
make use of the concept called big data is used as the
enormous amount of patient-related data needs to be stored,
processed and maintained [7] [8].
A. The traditional healthcare system is mostly book based that
is the patient's records are manually collected and
maintained in books, by making use of this system lot of
manpower, cost and time are wasted.
After the adoption of cloud computing and big data
technology, an enormous amount of data can be collected
from various sources such a medical tracking applications,
social media etc. and the collected data can be stored in cloud
central storage. This enormous amount of structured and
unstructured patient’s data introduces the concept of big data
technology into the healthcare domain. In order to maintain
and manage the collected data cloud computing was
introduced which provides a virtual server in which all the
collected data can be stored by the organization.
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B. The cost involved in adapting the traditional
healthcare system is more. The organization should spend a
huge amount in hiring staffs to maintain the medical records,
the maintenance also increases.
By adapting the cloud and big data technology, the cost
can be greatly reduced. Amazon Web Service (AWS) charges
only $0.1 per hour for making use of cloud service. So data
can be collected and easily stored in cloud storage with
minimal cost. So the organization can make cost effective
decisions and there is no need to hire internal IT staffs to
manage and maintain manual records.
C. The manual records are mainly written and
maintained in form of papers, there is a huge chance of paper
depreciation or records being lost. But by making use of cloud
storage all the collected structured and unstructured form of
data can be easily stored. The records are made available in
digital format so there is no worry of paper depreciation.
D. Traditional healthcare systems needed internal IT
staff to manage critical medical applications such as EHRs.
After the adoption of EHRs, bigger organizations can transfer
their load of work to third-party cloud service providers,
therefore, IT infrastructure cost can be reduced. By
transferring the resources to a virtual environment the
organization not only reduces additional cost but also
promotes green computing.
E. In traditional ECG system, there is no real-time
tracking of patient’s health, present healthcare system collects
patients data using the Kardia Board, the collected data is
stored in cloud central storage and made available to doctors
and peer groups in their smartphones so real-time monitoring
is possible [7].
F. In traditional healthcare mechanism patients, health
related data can be obtained only after conducting health
examination. In the present healthcare sector, patient’s health-
related data can be obtained from time to time with the help of
wearable devices such as smart watches, Fitbit. The collected
data is transferred to cloud and made available in user
smartphone through medical tracking applications. Now the
 International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication (ICSPC’17) – 28th & 29th July 2017
user can track his/her health from time to time without any
concern for external examination.
G. Earlier in order to meet the doctor, the patient needs
to invest time in traveling and make an appointment with the
doctor, the patient needs to spend a lot of time and money in
this process. But the present healthcare system allows the
patients and doctors to communicate with each other with the
help of social media and external medical applications such as
Microsoft HealthVault. By following the present system the
doctors can have a constant monitoring of their patient’s
health and also make medical recommendation anywhere and
anytime.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
For any developing country to make a progress over the past
constant, development is needed in all sectors such as IT
industries, healthcare, education etc. In this paper, a study is
made on the progress by developing countries in the
healthcare sector. When compared to the traditional healthcare
system severe and needed changes have occurred in the
healthcare sector after the introduction of cloud computing
and big data. Even though major changes have occurred in the
past still in certain scenarios patients prefer to stick with the
traditional methods with respect to medications, some patients
still resist to intake artificial tablets and medications and prefer
to stick with natural medications.
V. CONCLUSION
Cloud computing and big data are considered to be emerging
technologies in the present market. When these two major
technologies are integrated into the traditional healthcare
system, enormous and effective results can be derived. In
developing countries such as India, this integration of
technologies is needed in order to make progress in the
healthcare sector.
In this paper, a comparative view of the traditional healthcare
system and the present healthcare system using cloud
computing and big data is provided. By obtaining this
comparative knowledge a clear view can be obtained, so
development can be concentrated only in required areas.
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VI. REFERENCES
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[2] Doukas, C., and Maglogiannis, I.,” Managing Wearable
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[3] Ibnualim, I., and Supangkat, S, H.,”Design of Health
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[4] Ratnam, K, A., and Dominic, P, D, D.,” Cloud Services -
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