
Experts from Gartner predict that through 2026, 70% of organizations will increase their cloud investments, as they will address cloud providers to handle their specific business requirements.
According to the same report, the cloud allows businesses to achieve such goals as the adoption of GenAI, composability of the applications and cloud hosting, environmental sustainability, utilizing the services of specialty cloud providers (those catering to particular customer challenges), and cost management.
I will relate the general cloud tendencies to the ones happening in healthcare, speaking from my 20-year expertise in healthtech. Fasten the seat belts, we’re flying to the clouds.
Why do businesses consider cloud migration?
Three factors that drive digital transformations in healthcare are shortages of IT experts in medical providers, the necessity to scale resources rapidly and be accessible, and virtual assistance that improves processes in workloads and increases the speed of decision-making. Here is how cloud computing addresses those issues:
- To stay competitive in the market of medical technologies and manage to offer digital solutions to patients, medical providers need skilled developers, data analysts, and other IT specialists. Hospitals and clinics often lack the resources to headhunt those employees. When turning to outsourced healthtech firms, medical organizations kill two birds with one stone. They close their digital tasks and augment their IT departments.
- The scalability of the cloud software allows for the addition or removal of storage, networking, and computing powers depending on the load. For instance, when there are many visitors to the website, the system does not shut down. It allows rapid resource extension without substantial costs.
- Cloud accessibility implies that users manage the data from any location and device. That is why some healthtech providers are considering migrating from .NET framework to .NET core. The .NET platform is valued by the developers of the Belitsoft company for its lightweight and open source. Besides, the .NET core enables the creation of applications for various platforms and therefore attracts both Windows and MacOS users.
- Cloud hosting allows for storing large amounts of data. Spacious storage is required for implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). AI in healthcare conveys multiple benefits for medical administration staff, radiologists, nurses, medical coders, and other experts. For example, AI tools are used in image interpretation and diagnosis.
Therefore, cloud computing becomes the trigger for digital transformations in healthcare and, at the same time, the condition for further developments, such as AI implementation, for instance.
What are the issues that hinder cloud migration in healthcare?
Cost management
Despite the advantages of cloud adoption, businesses still feel hesitant about this process. More than 8 out of 10 companies set cloud cost management as the top challenge. From my experience, a micro-change management approach helps to control cloud migration expenses.
The gist of the approach is dividing big transformations into smaller steps. This way, the first results will be visible after a short time, which motivates the team. Another noticeable plus is that fewer resources are required for minor changes, so it is more manageable in terms of investment.
Cloud vendors use various pricing plans depending on the models their users need (Software-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service). Customers assess their requirements and choose one of the following options:
- Pay-as-You-Go: users pay only for the resources they need. For instance, a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) system needs additional storage and networking at the peak of seasonal infections, as there is an increased number of patients. Thus, the cloud provider bills for those features. When there is less activity on the site, the resources scale down.
- Fixed subscription plans: users pay for a fixed package of services during a definite period. For large organizations, cloud vendors also offer discounts.
- Special savings plans: For instance, Amazon offers special conditions for its users. They provide discounts for their services in exchange for a long-term commitment of one to three years. To learn more about top tools that can help with cloud ETL and cost management, consider exploring available resources.
Knowing the options mentioned above and choosing the one that will meet the requirements of a healthcare business is half the deal. Cloud resources are dynamic and cover multiple locations and medical providers.
Easy scalability and accessibility are appealing benefits, however, lack of visibility impedes medical organizations from understanding the long-term costs. I recommend relying on an appropriate cost management strategy. It outlines the future consumption of cloud services and allows for careful resource allocation.
Healthtech businesses choose some of the following options to manage cloud costs:
- Following the budget: companies set the budget for cloud services and stick to it.
- Choosing the right resources: it is common for companies to pay for the resources and fail to use them. That is why firms should ensure they order computing powers, networking, and storage at the limits they actually need.
- Autoscaling: adding resources automatically during peak loads and removing them when they become excessive.
- Scheduling: if the services are not required during some time, they are disabled during that period. For instance, teams may shut down the system outside of business hours, which allows for saving costs.
- Defining unused capacities: organizations tend to request services that are not further used. Scanning the cloud for those cases and removing them is necessary for effective cost management.
Security
Healthcare was a tidbit for cyber attacks for the previous four years. Cybercriminals steal sensitive data and use it to extort money. The Black Basta group is notoriously known for earning around $100 million through ransomware since 2022.
Medical organizations deal with the health histories, insurance policies, and banking details of their patients. They are afraid of moving that data to the cloud and making it accessible.
Healthtech providers care about their customers’ data and apply powerful cybersecurity tools and strategies to protect it. First, it is important to ensure an attentive and careful attitude to data security among the staff.
It is achieved by arranging training sessions and iterative instructions for the employees. Second, competent cybersecurity specialists manage to apply zero-trust authentication, various access rights, detection systems, and other measures to react to cyber threats timely.
Final remarks
Business experts such as McKinsey, Deloitte, and Harvard Review speak about the general tendency among companies to migrate their data to the cloud. It is a trend that will continue to deploy for quite some time in the future.
However, business owners should realize the process is technologically complicated and will not pay off immediately. Therefore, a careful roadmap with well-assessed risks and gradual processes is required.

Dmitry Baraishuk is a partner and Chief Innovation Officer at the software development company Belitsoft (a Noventiq company) with 20 years of expertise in digital healthcare, custom e-learning software development, and Business Intelligence (BI) implementation.