Executive Interview Live From HIMSS ‘26: From CapEx to Cloud with Tim Calahan

March 18, 2026: For years, healthcare leaders debated whether public cloud was ready for mission-critical platforms like Epic. Today, the question has shifted from if to when. Tim Calahan, Founder of EHC Consulting brings a rare perspective to the conversation, one shaped by actually running the migration from inside a major academic health system. After serving as CTO at Michigan Medicine and leading their move to Azure, Tim now helps health systems navigate the financial, operational, and security realities of cloud adoption.In this Executive Interview live from HIMSS 26, Tim explains why the economics of infrastructure are shifting rapidly. Rising on-premise costs, evolving licensing models, and the flexibility of cloud consumption are changing the traditional CapEx mindset healthcare organizations have relied on for decades. But the real opportunity goes beyond infrastructure.Cloud migration can become the moment organizations rethink security architecture, modernize legacy environments, and unlock access to new tools like data lakes and AI platforms that simply aren’t practical on-prem. The move to cloud isn’t the destination, it’s the foundation for the next generation of healthcare innovation.Key TopicsEpic and other healthcare workloads moving to public cloudTim’s experience leading Michigan Medicine’s migrationCloud vs on-prem total cost of ownership in healthcare ITCapEx vs OpEx financial models for infrastructureSecurity improvements through cloud segmentation and policy controls