Using cloud solution for medical image processing: Issues and implementation efforts

In the healthcare field, medical image processing through cloud computing is a promising technology. In fact, it allows healthcare professionals to process and analyze medical images using remote cloud resources. Furthermore, it provides cost-efficient software as a service, which realizes important cost savings associated with exploiting the local data center and hiring IT staff. Thus, it dramatically decreases the costs of providing medical services. Moreover, this new paradigm allows collaboration between healthcare practitioners. Despite its multiple advantages, shifting to this new paradigm faces various challenges: technical, legal and managerial. Recently, the healthcare sector has been interested in migrating to this technology to improve the quality of medical care. In this study, we provide a deeper insight into the challenges hindering the adoption of this technology. Then, we analyze and compare the current status of the cloud-based medical image processing implementations with security requirements. Moreover, future research directions related to security and performance are outlined in this paper.