The Cloud and Imaging in Healthcare: 2026 Outlook
The Cloud Explained
Essential services delivered by the Cloud are:
- Servers
- Storage
- Databases
- Networking
- Software
- Analytics
- Intelligence
Not all cloud offerings are created equal, and no solution fits every industry. For example, cloud protocols suitable for the financial sector may not meet the needs of healthcare organizations.
Cloud solutions include
Public Cloud services offer enterprises the ability to use storage, applications, and virtual machines. They are available through a subscription, an on-demand arrangement, or other payment models.
A private cloud can be on-premises at a data center, hosted by an outside vendor, and used by one entity to maintain services and infrastructure on a private network or system.
Hybrid Cloud combines private and public assets to allow the sharing of information and applications.
Cloud Adoption In Healthcare and Medical Imaging
According to the 2025 KLAS Public Cloud Providers Report, healthcare organizations continue to accelerate cloud adoption as they modernize infrastructure and support initiatives such as AI, genomics computing, and digital pathology. More than 80% of surveyed healthcare organizations already use a public cloud provider, yet most maintain significant on-premises infrastructure; nearly 40% report that at least 90% of their environment remains on-premises. At the same time, 39% of organizations plan to accelerate cloud migration within the next 12 to 24 months, particularly among larger health systems. Key cloud use cases include disaster recovery and business continuity (67%), data archiving and long-term storage (64%), and data analytics and warehousing (53%). Cost reduction remains the top expected benefit, cited by 74% of respondents, followed by improved operational efficiency (50%) and scalability (42%).
Despite increasing investment in cloud infrastructure, healthcare organizations continue to face significant challenges. Data security and privacy concerns remain top priorities across surveyed organizations, while talent shortages, integration with legacy systems, technical complexity, and budget constraints continue to slow digital transformation efforts. These concerns are especially relevant for medical imaging environments, where high-volume image transmission, long-term retention requirements, interoperability, and performance demands place additional pressure on infrastructure planning.
Benefits of the Cloud in Healthcare
Cloud data storage options have become more widely adopted in healthcare over the past several years, as potential concerns about storing data “off-premise” have been addressed. As organizations adopt mobile applications, storing clinical data in the Cloud provides users more complete access.
Key Benefits
- Enhanced security: Cloud-based patient data storage will undergo continuous improvements with little or no disruption to information access as new levels of security are implemented, ensuring compliance with evolving regulations and safeguarding patient confidentiality.
- Scalability: Cloud storage can quickly adapt to changing needs, adjusting capacity as patient data increases or decreases. This flexibility can result in significant cost savings, especially with pay-as-you-go arrangements.
- Reduced IT costs: Storing patient data in the Cloud can reduce the size of the on-site IT staff needed for upgrades and maintenance.
- Availability and Reliability:Cloud storage is protected against power outages, ensuring continuous operation and data safety.
- Access: Patient data stored on a cloud platform is readily available 24/7, anywhere, with internet
access, enabling remote work for healthcare professionals and telehealth options for patients. - Flexibility: The Cloud eliminates the need for adjustments required through traditional patient data storage changes by seamlessly integrating them into the current cloud operating system.
Securing Patient Data in the Cloud
Cloud storage offers significant advantages for HIPAA-compliant de-identification of Protected Health Information (PHI). This process requires removing or masking of 18 PHI identifiers, making data preparation complex. Unlike server-based systems, cloud storage reduces exposure to human error and software glitches. Encrypted EHR/EMRs and DICOM data protect sensitive information from unauthorized access, cyber-attacks, and breaches. Third-party cloud providers enhance security with updated firewalls and protection measures, ensuring only authorized personnel access the data.
Patient data stored in the cloud includes:
- Clinical: Health records, physician notes, orders, pharmaceutical information, and test results.
- Revenue cycle management: Tracking patient care episodes from registration to final payment.
- Imaging: X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs.
Cloud Tiering In Healthcare
Cloud tiering is a data storage strategy that automatically moves data between different storage tiers based on access frequency and usage patterns. Cloud tiering allows healthcare organizations to store frequently accessed, critical data on high-performance, on-premises storage systems while moving older, less frequently accessed data to more cost-effective cloud storage tiers. Cloud tiering helps healthcare organizations meet data retention requirements while managing storage costs effectively. When considering data management solutions, healthcare organizations need to ensure seamless user access to archived images, cache them locally when required, and enable cloud-native access for researchers to utilize AI and ML tools.
Key aspects of cloud tiering include:
- Data categorization classifies information into hot and cold tiers based on usage frequency.
- Automated data movement: Cloud tiering software automatically removes data between storage tiers according to predefined policies and access patterns.
- Cost optimization: By moving cold data to cheaper storage options, organizations can significantly reduce storage costs, potentially reducing storage, backup, and disaster recovery expenses.
- Seamless access ensures that users and applications can retrieve files effortlessly, regardless of the storage tier.
- Scalability: Cloud tiering allows for easy adjustment of storage capacity to meet changing data needs without significant infrastructure changes.
As healthcare organizations continue to generate and store massive amounts of medical imaging data, the Cloud is increasingly critical in managing this information effectively.
Cloud PACS, the Newest Player in the Cloud Realm
Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) is a medical imaging technology used primarily in healthcare organizations to securely store and digitally transmit electronic images and clinically relevant reports. Traditionally, PACS are on-premises, requiring significant infrastructure and maintenance. However, with the advent of cloud computing, Cloud PACS has emerged as a transformative solution, leveraging cloud technology to enhance medical image storage, retrieval, and management.
Cloud PACS is a system where medical imaging data is stored in the cloud instead of on local servers. This setup allows healthcare providers to access, share, and analyze medical images anytime and anywhere with an internet connection. Cloud PACS integrates with other cloud-based healthcare solutions, offering a seamless and scalable platform for managing medical imaging data.
- Scalability: Cloud PACS can scale to accommodate the growing volume of imaging data without additional physical storage, benefiting large healthcare organizations that handle extensive imaging needs.
- Cost-Effectiveness: By utilizing cloud storage, organizations can reduce the upfront and maintenance costs associated with on-premises PACS. Cloud PACS often operates on a pay-as-you-go model, making it more affordable for smaller healthcare providers.
- Accessibility: Medical professionals can access imaging data from any location, facilitating remote diagnostics and consultations crucial for teleradiology and other telehealth services, especially in underserved or rural areas.
- Disaster Recovery: Cloud PACS offers robust disaster recovery capabilities. Data stored in the cloud is protected against local hardware failures, natural disasters, and other disruptions, ensuring continuity of care and safeguarding patient information.
Integration and Interoperability: Cloud PACS systems can integrate with other cloud-based healthcare applications, such as electronic health records (EHRs) and radiology information systems (RIS). This integration promotes interoperability, enhancing the overall efficiency of healthcare delivery. - Enhanced Security: Leading cloud providers implement advanced security measures, including encryption, access controls, and regular security audits, to protect sensitive medical data from cyber threats.
The Role of Cloud PACS
The adoption of Cloud PACS is rapidly increasing. According to the Imaging in the Cloud Report by KLAS, nearly two-thirds of healthcare organizations are already using or planning to use the Cloud for image viewing and storage within the next three years. This trend highlights the growing recognition of the benefits offered by cloud-based solutions in the medical imaging field.
- Costs: Some healthcare organizations find cloud solutions as expensive as on-premises, particularly when considering long-term usage and data transfer costs.
- Privacy and Cybersecurity: Ensuring the privacy and security of sensitive medical data is paramount. Healthcare organizations must work with reputable cloud providers to mitigate data breaches and unauthorized access risks.
- Bandwidth Requirements: Ensuring sufficient bandwidth is crucial to maintaining performance and accessibility, as High-resolution medical images require substantial bandwidth for efficient upload and download.
Teleradiology in the Cloud
Teleradiology involves transmitting radiological images from one location to another for analysis and interpretation by off-site radiologists. This flexibility is crucial for accessing sub-specialists like MRI radiologists, neuroradiologists, pediatric radiologists, or musculoskeletal radiologists, who are typically available only in large metropolitan areas during daytime hours. Teleradiology ensures 24/7 access to trained specialists and is a market projected to reach $11.5 billion by 2026, offering significant opportunities for healthcare organizations and imaging service providers.
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is a standard for data formats, elements (“resources”), and APIs for exchanging electronic health/medical records (EHR/EMR). FHIR builds on HL7’s previous data standards and is easier to implement with modern, web-based API technology, including an HTTP-based RESTful protocol. A scalable de-identification toolset is essential to comply with the Safe Harbor methodology, which requires masking or removing 18 PHI identifiers to enable de-identified data for research or training of AI algorithms without compromising patient privacy. The solution is a proven and scalable de-identification toolset—an on-ramp to artificial intelligence (AI)—unlocks imaging studies for research, policy assessment, and comparative effectiveness studies without compromising patient privacy.
Cloud’s Role in Teleradiology
The Cloud is integral to advancing teleradiology. It provides the necessary infrastructure to store vast amounts of data, including images. The Cloud enables seamless access to subspecialists and ensures that telehealth services can be scaled globally, accommodating higher patient loads and extending clinicians’ reach via the Internet or cell signals. Additional benefits of cloud-based solutions include speed to deployment, global availability, and the capacity to handle large volumes of patient data efficiently.
The Cloud offers a fast path to getting teleradiology systems up and running during a catastrophic event. It allows for the petabytes of storage required for images while providing the ability to build and deploy systems, extending a clinician’s reach with a primary internet connection or a cell signal.
Improving Disaster Recovery with the Cloud
Disaster recovery (DR) is how organizations regain access and functionality to their IT infrastructure following a natural or human-induced disaster. These disasters can take many forms but invariably result in disrupted systems and halted business operations. An effective DR plan is crucial for health IT teams to restore medical data and resume normal processes swiftly, minimizing downtime and data loss.
When access to on-prem systems is limited, a cloud-based health IT platform has a significant advantage as part of a disaster recovery response plan. A healthcare organization must have a comprehensive backup plan to address various disasters. Delays of even a few days in resuming normal hospital operations can jeopardize patient safety, particularly if medical devices or medications are affected. Healthcare organizations can avoid significant capital investments in infrastructure and the ongoing costs of managing it by selecting a cloud-based backup or disaster recovery solution. Additionally, they benefit from rapid scalability and the geographic separation necessary to safeguard data in a regional disaster.
When access to on-premises systems is restricted, a cloud-based health IT platform offers significant advantages for disaster recovery:
- Comprehensive Backup Plans: A cloud-based DR solution enables healthcare organizations to have a comprehensive backup plan capable of addressing a range of disasters. Rapid restoration of normal hospital operations is critical to patient safety, especially when medical devices or medications are involved.
- Cost Efficiency: Healthcare organizations can avoid the substantial capital investments required for infrastructure and the ongoing costs associated with managing it by opting for cloud-based backup or DR solutions.
- Rapid Scalability: Cloud solutions can scale quickly, accommodating sudden data storage needs or processing power increases during a disaster.
- Geographic Separation: Storing data in geographically dispersed cloud locations ensures data safety in regional disasters. This geographic separation protects data against localized events that could compromise on-premises systems.
Dicom Systems and the Cloud
When a healthcare system’s PACS goes down, the need for disaster recovery and business continuity must go hand in hand so that mission-critical clinical workflows can continue. Unifier Vendor-Neutral Archive (VNA) ensures uninterrupted patient imaging operations, whether PACS downtime was planned or unplanned.
Discover how the Dicom Systems Unifier platform cloud-based solutions can provide uninterrupted imaging operations and disaster recovery. Schedule a meeting with our experts today to learn more about our offerings and how they can benefit your organization.