The Big 4 in Health and Tech
The need for reform in healthcare is not only limited to the health industry. Even other industries such as technology have pivoted to invest more in infrastructure that supports the advancement of health such as gadgets or applications that monitor and give analytics to people’s health. Here are the big names in tech that are gearing to the healthcare space.
Amazon Healthcare
Amazon’s leverage on their solutions such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), PillPack, AmazonCare, Haven, Medical Supply Chain and Alexa have to deliver reliable and fast services to healthcare. Not only through these offerings they infiltrate the space but among its strategy is through enterprise level partnerships and acquisitions. One of its most recent endeavor is a $3.9 billion worth acquisition of 1Life Healthcare Inc. This gives people a positive outlook that the retail giant will make improvements on the customer experience in healthcare the same way they did on retain space.
Apple Healthcare
Apple is most famous for its consumer based products such as Apple Watch and Iphones - whose health related features are well received by their users. However, they also have solutions and platforms for health records and genetic testing. One of their goals is to forge partnerships to different vendors such as clinical researchers, health systems and payers. True to their goal as a company, that the greatest accomplishment they will ever have is through its contribution to health, they continue to progress and make better every iteration of their products. This July, they released their report highlighting ways to utilize their tools and services, ultimately empowering people to be the guardians of their own health. They are breaking down barriers across users, developers, organizations, and institutions using their devices and APIs between people and their health information without sacrificing confidentiality.
Google (Alphabet) Healthcare
Alphabet is using its dominance in analytics and data storage to streamline healthcare research and patch up interoperability challenges - these enable them to partner with hospitals and solve their Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) and infrastructure limitations. As of 2022, the company is leading the investments on research and development on healthcare space - allotting a total of $1.2 billion dollars in “futuristic health ideas.” Some of the solutions and platforms Google supports are Google Fit, DeepMind, Verily, Calico and FitBit.
Microsoft Health
Last March 2022, Microsoft announced developments in their cloud computing technology dedicated for healthcare and life sciences with the availability of Azure Health Data services and enhancements to their Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Microsoft acquired Nuance Communications, a leader in AI technology and innovations, and this greatly positioned Microsoft to expand its healthcare services. Some of their offerings include Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, Healthcare NExT, Microsoft Genomics, Medical Scribe and Microsoft Health Bot. Microsoft already displayed their prowess in data analytics with their Azure platform with a lot of consideration on security such as Support for secure PHI exchange, A suite of secured healthcare API, The ability to enable management, de-identification, event notification and transformation, and lastly provide secure connection of PHI data.
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