The Cloud in Costume
Have you ever run out of costume ideas and just thrown on a sheet and called it a ghost? Unfortunately, the imaging IT stack has its own version of that partygoer: vendors selling “cloud solutions” that are really just legacy systems wearing a new mask.
Trick or Treat?
For years, the radiology IT stack has been haunted by complexity. On-premise PACS, bolt-on reporting, voice systems, and fragmented AI tools have created a messy patchwork of servers, licenses, and integrations. The result: capital refresh cycles that cost millions, overworked IT teams, and radiologists chained to inefficient workflows.
Now, as practices look to modernize, legacy vendors are pulling out their favorite Halloween trick — “the cloud in costume.”
They’ll tell you their PACS is cloud-ready or cloud-enabled, but beneath the costume, it’s the same on-premise software hosted somewhere else. It may look like SaaS on the outside, but the refresh cycles, downtime, and IT burden are still lurking beneath the surface.
That’s not the future; it’s a monster stitched together from old parts and brought to life with marketing.
The Real Cloud: Born, Not Dressed, for the Cloud
True cloud-native infrastructure does more than modernize technology; it changes the entire business model of radiology. Cloud-native radiology doesn’t wear a costume; it really is fast, secure, scalable, and designed for how radiologists actually work. In an interview with the Imaging Wire, Sirona Medical CEO Ken Kaufman likens today’s imaging landscape to “renting DVDs at Blockbuster while the rest of the world is streaming.” Radiologists today read from multiple sites, whether at home or across the country, and expect the same seamlessness they experience with every other digital tool in their lives.
Legacy vendors have responded with incremental upgrades, but these are cosmetic fixes on a crumbling foundation. True modernization requires a platform built for the cloud, not merely hosted there. A cloud-native operating system allows radiologists to log in through a browser, read from anywhere, and access continuous updates without downtime. Practices that once spent hundreds of thousands on server refreshes and IT overhead can now expand elastically, paying only for what they use.
Why “Costume Cloud” Is Scary
When legacy vendors rebrand as “cloud,” it’s not just misleading – it’s expensive, too. The argument for modernization is straightforward once the hidden costs of legacy systems are revealed.
Capital expenditures: On-premise infrastructure demands refresh cycles every five years, often exceeding $500,000 to $1 million each time.
Operational overhead: Maintenance, monitoring, and integration typically add another $250,000–$500,000 annually.
Downtime exposure: For busy practices, even brief outages can jeopardize service-level agreements worth millions.
A cloud-native, usage-based model converts capital expense into predictable operating expense, with redundancy and uptime built in. Industry analyses show total cost of ownership dropping 30–50 percent while unlocking capabilities that previously required enterprise-scale budgets.
The Great Unmasking
This Halloween, when you hear “cloud,” ask three simple questions:
- Was this platform built in the cloud, or just moved there?
- Can it update continuously, or does it still need scheduled maintenance?
- Does it unify my workflow, or just host the same silos somewhere else?
If you hear anything spooky like “hybrid” or “cloud-compatible,” beware. It’s probably a costume.