Recommendations for Cloud-Based My Health Record System Implementation

This report provides recommendations for the cloud-based My Health Record system, an e-Health Record management project by the Australian Government. The report analyzes the benefits of cloud computing, including scalability and accessibility, and recommends a hybrid cloud model for data security and accessibility. It compares cloud solution vendors, evaluates pros and cons of cloud-based solutions, and discusses SDLC approaches. The report recommends an adaptive SDLC approach for flexibility and responsiveness to changes during system development. The report also highlights the importance of vendor selection and data privacy in the cloud-based environment. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the system's requirements, vendor solutions, and implementation approaches.

Title
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Vendor Solution..........................................................................................................................................3
Review of a Cloud Based Solution..............................................................................................................4
SDLC Approach..........................................................................................................................................4
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................6
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Introduction
The aim of the report is to provide recommendations on the cloud based My Health Record solution. This
is an e-Health Record management project undertaken by the Australian Government. The project will
help to record all personal healthcare information of a patient and will make it available to other
healthcare service providers as and when necessary. This will help to reduce the loss of health records,
will make the health records available on demand, and it will help to accelerate the treatment process in a
case of emergency or critical conditions. The proposed capabilities of the My Health Record system are
healthcare identification services, integrating the healthcare service providers systems with the My Health
Record system, making the My Health Record system available to all end users on demand basis and over
an online platform, allowing the system to store, share, and update health records in real-time.
Cloud computing has become a popular choice for the deployment of organizational and health care
management systems from the last few year. This disruptive technology delivers information and
communication technology based services on demand basis (Antonopoulos & Gillam, 2012). The
platform is scalable, portable and can be accessed from anywhere with the help of suitable web and
mobile applications, and connectivity to the Internet. A hybrid cloud based model should be deployed for
the proposed My Health Record application. The hybrid application will make the platform available to
all stakeholders through the implementation of suitable public cloud solution (Marinescu, 2017). And a
private cloud will be deployed to store and process the healthcare related information of the patients.
Healthcare information are highly sensitive and must be protected. There are dedicated rules, laws, etc.
that must be enforced to protect the data properly (Jamsa, 2012).
There are different vendors that provide cloud based solutions, work on the implementation and
deployment of a cloud based solution. The project will require to make contract with some cloud vendor
and to hire developers to develop the cloud based application and implement it (Antonopoulos & Gillam,
2012).
In the following sections of the report there will be information about some cloud vendors who can
deliver suitable cloud solution to meet the system requirements, review of the strengths and weaknesses
of a cloud based solution, and suitable SDLC approach for the information system development project.
Vendor Solution
The comparison of the 3 cloud solution vendors based on various features have been given below
(Turney, 2012).
Features drchrono EHR AdvancedMD AdvancedMD
Location of the Data
center
Worldwide Worldwide Worldwide
SLA and Contract Offer customizable and
detailed SLA
Detailed SLA available Detailed SLA available
IaaS service provider Yes Yes Yes
API for automation Available Available Available
Load balancing Available Free load balancers are
available
Available
Security Customizable security
solutions available.
Customizable security
solutions available.
Customizable security
solutions available.
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Review of a Cloud Based Solution
Based on the requirements of the proposed My Health Record information system, a cloud based
approach is suitable. However, there are pros and cons of cloud based solution. The pros are,
 Cloud based solutions are highly scalable. The proposed system is likely to grow significantly
with time. The growth is likely to be exponential. As it is a government undertaken project, so
people will get registered with it soon and high volume of data will be stored and processed in the
system (Marinescu, 2017).
 Cloud based solutions are on-demand solution. Based on the flow and requirements of data
processing, more computing resources can be added to the solution in real-time.
 Cloud based web and mobile applications can be accessed location-independently and platform-
independently (Salam, Gilani, & Haq, 2015).
 Cloud computing offers high availability of the system with very insignificant downtime. This is
important for such a mission critical system.
 Cloud computing offers load balancing, and data backup solutions as it creates multiple instances
of data over the cloud.
The cons of a cloud based solution are (Marinescu, 2017),
 Data privacy and security issues are an important concern for cloud based solution.
 Selection of vendor is critical for the success of a cloud based solution. The roles and
responsibilities of the vendor and the cloud solution subscribers must be clear from the beginning
(Chorafas, 2011).
 Accessing cloud applications require connectivity to the Internet. So, unavailability of the
Internet may make the application inaccessible to the end users.
SDLC Approach
The system development life cycle approaches can be categorized into the two broad categories, known
as predictive and adaptive approaches. The pros and cons of using both of the approaches for the
proposed cloud based My Health Record application implementation are listed below.
Adaptive approaches
Adaptive approaches starts with the assumption that the activities of the project will be more adaptive to
changes and flexible. Hence, making changes to the requirements during the system development process
is easier with the adaptive approaches (Eckstein, 2013).
The pros are (Eckstein, 2013),
 It is more flexible and allows changes.
 It is more agile in nature and focuses on the system development more than documentation.
 It takes lesser time and consume lesser resources to develop the systems.
The cons are,
 Too much changes may lead to scope creep issues.
 The quality control processes may not be adequate for mission critical systems.
Predictive Approaches
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Predictive approaches starts with the assumption that the project activities must be planned in advance
and no changes to the requirements are allowed during the system development phase. The system must
be developed according to the initial system development plan (Shelly, Cashman, & Rosenblatt, 2015).
The pros are,
 It is more systematic.
 Suitable for bigger projects.
 The roles of the project team members are defined before the starting of the system development
process (Shelly et al., 2015).
The cons are,
 It’s rigid and does not go well with the changes in the requirements during the system
development process.
 The cost and time required for the projects may be more.
 It focuses on documentation and roles of the team members than the development process.
Recommendation
It is recommended for the project to follow a suitable adaptive approach. It is difficult to define all
functionalities and feature to the system before the starting of the actual system development project.
There may be changes required to the system during the system development process.
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References
Antonopoulos, N., & Gillam, L. (2012). Cloud Computing: Principles, Systems and Applications:
Springer London.
Chorafas, D. N. (2011). Cloud Computing Strategies: CRC Press.
Eckstein, J. (2013). Agile Software Development in the Large: Diving Into the Deep: Pearson Education.
Jamsa. (2012). Cloud Computing: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Marinescu, D. C. (2017). Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice: Elsevier Science.
Salam, A., Gilani, Z., & Haq, S. U. (2015). Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure: Real-World
Skills for the CompTIA Cloud+ Certification and Beyond: Exam CV0-001: Wiley.
Shelly, G., Cashman, T. J., & Rosenblatt, H. J. (2015). Systems Analysis and Design: Cengage Learning.
Turney, D. (2012). Australian clouds compared. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/australian-
clouds-compared-7000002315/
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