In an era where technology is a key leverage to be efficient and scalable, the healthcare industry continues to be influenced by technology. In this technological healthcare system, cloud computing has emerged as a go-to solution for providing medical services and streamlining operations, according to healthcare technology expert Gopi Nagarajarao. His work in developing cloud-based platforms for medical devices, data management and middleware architecture is helping healthcare facilities handle their services effectively.
Gopi Nagarajarao exclusively works on designing and implementing cloud solutions for the healthcare industry. Two major sections where he has tried to make an impact are securing data and minimising the costs of operations. By developing data classification systems, which pointed towards where the data is stored and what type of encryption it requires, it helped optimise cloud storage costs while maintaining stringent security standards. This initiative led to a 100% increase in the number of transactions done per second. Faster processing also led to quicker deliveries and improved logistics operations.
Further, medical devices need to have a lot of information that flows from different sources depending on where and how it is manufactured and distributed. The data needs to be coherent and useful. Local and international regulatory bodies have different types of information that need to be presented and stored. In this context, Nagarajarao tells us that,” The storage and usage of data is of extreme importance and not all cloud and SaaS solutions take responsibility in case of a data breach or a mishap.” To tackle this problem, he suggested designing and using hybrid clouds and multi-cloud architectures along with a security policy which can help in building a resilient system.
Beyond dealing with health infrastructure, his involvement in the City of Tshwane project in South Africa demonstrates the scalability opportunity that the cloud provides. This ambitious five-year initiative, with a budget of approximately 15 million ZAR, led to the integration of fifty government institutions under a unified IT platform, transitioning from legacy systems and paper-based systems to a fully digital solution. As one of the key project architects, Nagarajarao designed integration and performance dashboards with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and data points.
In his paper”Leveraging Service Oriented Architecture to Optimize Government IT Services”, he also talked about how governments can integrate their data digitally across various departments using SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), which can serve as a guide for governments looking to embrace technology in their services more effectively.
Another significant project included the TelePacific systems middleware architecture design and overhaul of service-based architecture, which enhanced the performance of 4G and LTE services, used by major telecom operators.
While working on the City of Tshwane project, he had to identify technical requirements for the vast majority of services, such as defining performance metrics for govt organizations, which
were non-existent before, for which he had to design a common plan to gather all data and digitize it for ease of access.
Speaking of problems, he also had to anticipate security challenges in some legacy applications and use innovative ways to secure them which did not exist previously in the system. Further, using modern methods such as API gateways, REST, JSON and web services to process more data reduced lots of complexities, making the system more resilient.
Nagarajarao lets us know that “Most design architecture does not consider resiliency as important as core processes which can cause unforeseen costs and lack of services.” He tells us that for resilience, one has to understand the system very carefully to foresee possible future bottlenecks and problems, as not considering resilience and security can lead to total system downtime. He also warns us that,” Cloud service providers primarily sell resiliency and security as their MSP. But we have seen in extreme cases that might not be as reliable as they claim to be always.”
Having been enthusiastically involved in the projects and seeing the results, he lets us know that for healthcare companies and medical devices that use software, it is important that the data classification, protection and usage are according to the local laws, which should be built as policies in the system that can be upgraded and changed as and required. This saves a lot of time, money and headaches for healthcare companies.
For healthcare companies, governments and enterprises navigating the complex landscape of digitised integrations, Nagarajarao’s work and insights can provide a valuable roadmap for building cloud solutions for operations, and integrations, keeping in mind the security, effectiveness and resiliency of the systems.
