As December turns to January, it’s important to reflect on the past year while also considering what may lie ahead. For those of us in healthcare, this is often easier said than done. From cyber incidents to public health crises, healthcare organizations must be prepared to respond to the unexpected at a moment’s notice. At the same time, we are seeing a lot of exciting momentum in the health IT space, and, accordingly, organizations want to make the most of new innovations.
With competing priorities and limited budgets, organizations often find that pursuing one initiative comes at the expense of another. But this is not a given.
The cloud, which sits at the intersection of healthcare’s top challenges and opportunities, will be the major driver of progress in 2025. Here are five reasons why:
New capabilities
When healthcare organizations first transitioned from paper medical charts to electronic health records (EHRs), the idea of using a patient’s history to predict future health outcomes was a pipe dream. In 2025, we will see that once-far-off vision come to life with the power of the cloud.
According to the World Economic Forum, approximately 97% of health data currently goes unused. The public cloud will enable advanced analytics and machine learning (ML) to process vast clinical datasets—and tap into the potential of all that data.
As more organizations move to the cloud and begin leveraging these capabilities, providers will be able to make even more informed decisions for various steps along the patient journey. Predictive analytics will enable providers to identify high-risk patients so they can provide more proactive—rather than reactive—treatments. The cloud and ML will also help precision medicine expand, making healthcare more personalized than ever before.
These enhancements will not only help improve outcomes and patient and provider satisfaction, but also organizations’ operational and financial performances. Making the best decision the first time will drive greater efficiency and prevent unnecessary testing and treatments—two ongoing challenges in the industry today.
Scalability
One of the biggest lessons coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic was the importance of the ability for healthcare organizations to quickly pivot in response to external factors. And while 2025 will mark five years since the pandemic’s beginning, the need for scalability remains.
In the year ahead, public cloud platforms will give organizations cost-effective means to scale healthcare services and respond to rising demand for digital health offerings. For example, approximately one in four healthcare consumers say they would be willing to switch doctors if theirs doesn’t offer virtual care.
As wearables and other smart health devices grow in adoption, the cloud will enable organizations to process the data generated in real-time. This means organizations will be able to provide more accessible, consumer-centric healthcare—and will be better positioned to compete with both traditional and non-traditional healthcare organizations. Additionally, as organizations capture more data from patients’ everyday environments, the cloud will provide the means to harness social determinants of health data and move the needle on health equity.
The cloud’s scalability will also enable organizations to decentralize clinical trials. Removing geographic barriers to participant recruitment will allow organizations to recruit more diverse groups of patients and help ensure any findings are more representative.
Security
As of early October, 386 healthcare cyberattacks were reported in 2024, according to the American Hospital Association. Not only is healthcare one of the top industries malicious actors target, but it is also the most expensive industry for responding to and recovering from breaches at an average of $9.8 million.
Robust security measures within the cloud will be critical to healthcare organizations as cyberattacks on healthcare systems continue to increase. Many public cloud platforms have built-in security components like encryption, firewalls and 24/7 monitoring tools that can bolster an organization’s cybersecurity posture.
Additionally, many public cloud platforms offer tools and services that make it easier for healthcare organizations to comply with regulations like HIPAA and FHIR to facilitate secure exchange and storage of healthcare data.
Cybersecurity risks will grow as the volume of data does. Healthcare organizations that evolve with the threat landscape will be best positioned to prevent costly breaches.
Reliability
In addition to the privacy and security of healthcare data, organizations must prioritize system reliability to maintain data availability. When infrastructure fails, or even when downtime is planned, it creates disruptions in care as providers may have no or limited access to a patient’s history. Additionally, server outages can compound burnout by forcing providers to temporarily revert to paper records and repeat documentation once the system is back up.
Downtime and other IT inefficiencies contribute to approximately $8 billion in losses across the industry. At the individual organization level, downtime can cost thousands of dollars per minute. With the cloud, however, organizations can minimize downtime and the waste (and frustrations) it causes.
Because cloud platforms typically distribute data across multiple data centers, if one goes down, the data is automatically transferred to another, enabling seamless, continued data access. Technological barriers to more patient-centric care remain, but the cloud can certainly help push things in the right direction.
Interoperability
Nearly a decade has passed since Congress signed the 21st Century Cures Act into law, but we have yet to achieve seamless interoperability across the healthcare industry. Approximately 70% of organizations can send, receive, find and integrate electronic health information. Because patients often seek care at multiple organizations, getting that number closer to 100% is a worthy pursuit.
The public cloud will be the answer to interoperability barriers in 2025. Public cloud infrastructure will close gaps between providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders. More seamless data-sharing will then help providers better coordinate patient care and drive innovations like faster drug development.
Healthcare is often described as an ecosystem, and interoperability underscores this notion. With so many interconnected pieces and parts, incremental changes can cause a ripple effect with broad benefits.
Onward and upward
Healthcare organizations want to make the most of the resources available to them as they balance priorities like improving patient outcomes, enhancing provider experiences and achieving financial stability. The cloud is the answer to these ends. While public cloud platforms have already begun proving their value in healthcare, 2025 will be a tipping point for this technology. That’s a forecast you can count on.
Marcus Perez
Marcus Perez is President of Altera Digital Health.
