Framework for application of cloud computing technology to improve patients’ medical history access to clinicians for quality of care in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The key problem in Africa, especially in the Sub-Saharan countries, is that records management is still operated manually in a paper-based format and medium. Although everything has advantages and disadvantages, manual records creation and management have not had much or significant advantages as compared to the electronically created and managed records in a digital form and medium. Some of the key advantages of electronic records management are that records may be accessed in a matter of seconds, and the same records may be accessed and used by an unlimited number of users at the same time. Maintenance of the electronic records storage and systems may be costly yet very simple, in comparison to manual paper-based records storage maintenance. The electronic records storage upgrade may also be simple and easy but involves a significant amount of money. Imagine a situation in a country where records in different healthcare facilities are created and managed manually in a paper-based format. These facilities must share the health and medical history of each patient as the patient moves from facility to facility for consultation. If the sharing of patients’ records is a priority for such facilities, it will mean they will need to employ the service of vehicles and drivers moving around different facilities with files. The time spent on such activities would be significant, and the turnaround time for clinicians to access patients’ information would also be significant. This may be much more time consuming as compared to sharing patients’ information on a network in a matter of seconds when electronic records are managed using the appropriate technological systems, such as cloud computing. This topic has resulted in this study to investigate a framework for the application of cloud-computing technology to improve patients’ medical history access for clinicians to ensure quality of care in the fourth industrial revolution. The study therefore proposed a framework for the application of cloud-computing technology to improve patients’ medical history access to clinicians for quality of care in the fourth industrial revolution. The framework was developed based on the literature and discussion in the study to ensure that implementation of the findings was guided accordingly.