Sharing Elderly Healthcare information on Cloud Computing

Abstract: Context: Due to rapid increase in the population of elderly people, sharing healthcare information has become an essential requirement for the development of e-health system. By conducting a research in e-health and cloud computing we have explored the advantages and disadvantages of sharing healthcare information for elderly people through cloud computing. Objectives: The main purpose of this research is to investigate the suitability of cloud computing to share healthcare information. The study is conducted by exploring the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing for e-Health systems. Investigating a suitable cloud computing platform is also one of the objectives of this research. Methods: In order to identify and get deeper understanding of these issues, we have performed literature review of E-health, EHI and Cloud Computing technologies and we have develop a prototype application as experiment. Results: Based on the finding of literature review, we came to know that E-health was huge field. It needs a huge infrastructure to establish. The healthcare information in e-health requires quick and easy sharing. In EHI research, we defined EHI and find reasons for sharing elderly healthcare information. At cloud computing research, we knew the concept of cloud computing and found out advantages and disadvantages of implementing e-health in cloud computing. From literature review, we developed sharing application which was used to share EHI in cloud computing. In experiment, we proved our supposition and discussed advantages and disadvantages of sharing EHI in cloud computing by using Google App Engine (GAE). Conclusions: We conclude that cloud computing meets the requirements of sharing EHI, but it also has some limitations due to its architecture and network condition. In this research we have identified further research area that can help in enhancing security and privacy in cloud environment.