What You Should Know: 

– BrightInsight, Inc., a provider of compliant digital health solutions, today announced its collaboration with Google Cloud to leverage cutting-edge generative AI (gen AI) technology. 

– The enhanced partnership aims to optimize BrightInsight’s research and development efforts and significantly enhance its Disease Management Solution for both patients and healthcare providers.

Addressing Challenges in the Patient Journey

Across various therapeutic areas, patients often face hurdles throughout their treatment journey. These challenges include navigating access and financial barriers, transitioning between treatment options, managing complex treatment schedules, and tracking symptoms and treatment effectiveness.

Improving Patient Education and Support with AI

BrightInsight is tackling these challenges head-on by integrating Google Cloud’s Gemini and MedLM gen AI models within its Disease Management Solution. This integration offers several key benefits:

• AI-powered Chatbot: A chatbot powered by Gemini provides patients with improved access to approved educational content. Patients can receive immediate answers to their questions by leveraging a vast library of clinically validated information, eliminating the need to search through multiple documents.
• Enhanced Patient Support: The chatbot also serves as a first-line support system, offering quick and specific answers to patient inquiries regarding app usage.

Optimizing BrightInsight’s Internal Operations

BrightInsight is also utilizing Gemini Code Assist to streamline its internal R&D processes in three ways:

• Developing and Operating Google Cloud Components: Gemini Code Assist helps BrightInsight’s development team work more efficiently when building and managing Google Cloud components.
• Improved Troubleshooting: The technology assists in troubleshooting issues more effectively, saving valuable time and resources.
• Enhanced Analytics and Insights: By leveraging gen AI, BrightInsight can generate more insightful data analytics for its customers.

Leveraging MedLM for Improved Patient Data Management

Furthermore, BrightInsight is utilizing MedLM to summarize, analyze, and make patient data from companion apps more usable for clinicians. This allows for more impactful and data-driven conversations between patients and providers. For example, healthcare professionals can quickly identify missed medication doses or abnormal readings, enabling them to have focused discussions with their patients.

Prioritizing Security and Compliance

As BrightInsight advances its gen AI-based solutions, the company remains steadfastly committed to responsible implementation. Their platform and Disease Management Solution adhere to the highest security, privacy, and compliance standards, achieving certifications against global regulations. The integration of AI will follow the same rigorous approach, ensuring patient data protection.

“We have invested a lot in building best-in-class technology and hiring top engineering talent,” said Ashish Agrawal, chief technology officer, BrightInsight. “Partnering with Google Cloud and leveraging its AI technologies will enable BrightInsight to supercharge its solutions to achieve our vision of transforming patient outcomes through digital technologies.”

What You Should Know: 

– At Cloud Next ’24, Bayer and Google Cloud are teaming up to develop artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that empower radiologists and ultimately improve patient care.

– This collaboration centers on expanding Bayer’s innovation platform, designed to streamline the development and deployment of AI-powered applications specifically for radiology. By leveraging Google Cloud’s technology, including generative AI (gen AI) tools, Bayer aims to overcome common challenges in building secure and scalable medical imaging software. This paves the way for faster development of impactful solutions that benefit patients.

The Challenge of Medical Imaging Data

Medical imaging data makes up a staggering 90% of all healthcare data, posing a significant challenge due to its complexity and volume. Billions of images are scanned globally each year, burdening radiologists and healthcare professionals with interpretation and analysis. This collaboration aims to address this challenge by developing innovative AI tools to manage and analyze this vast amount of data efficiently.

Bayer’s Innovation Platform: Streamlining AI Development

Built on Google Cloud’s infrastructure, Bayer’s platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools for the entire AI development lifecycle:

• Analyze and Experiment: Users can uncover valuable insights using AI-powered data analysis and access a data ecosystem for designing innovative healthcare solutions. Additionally, intelligent search and data preparation capabilities are available, along with the ability to explore regulations and scientific papers within a secure collaboration environment.
• Build and Validate: Developers can leverage gen AI for ideation, development, validation, and lifecycle management of AI solutions. The platform allows generation of documents aligned with healthcare regulations, facilitating regulatory approval. Medical imaging core lab services from Bayer further aid in clinical performance evaluation.
• Launch and Monitor: Healthcare and life science companies can deploy standardized gen AI solutions designed for seamless integration across compatible healthcare systems. The platform also enables field data analysis for insights, bias detection, and continuous improvement.

Data Privacy and Security at the Forefront

Life science companies face stringent data security, compliance, and privacy regulations. Google Cloud addresses this need with industry-leading security capabilities like Chronicle and Mandiant. These tools empower users to centrally manage, monitor, and govern data, ensuring quality, accuracy, and consistency. Additionally, Google Cloud customers always retain control over their data.

In healthcare settings, Google Cloud’s infrastructure and data storage adhere to HIPAA and GDPR compliance standards, providing an extra layer of security on top of each customer’s existing security and privacy controls.

“Radiology plays a vital role in healthcare, and the need to efficiently and accurately uncover insights and deliver solutions at scale that can improve patient outcomes has never been greater,” said Nelson Ambrogio, president, Radiology at Bayer. “Bayer has a heritage in radiology with decades of contributions to radiological research and innovation. Through the collaboration with Google Cloud, our joint efforts will help organizations in the healthcare and life science industry transform the growing amounts of data into valuable and impactful insights, saving radiologists time and helping them optimize their important work for the benefit of patients.”

What You Should Know:

– Kyruus Health, a healthcare access platform, announces a collaboration with Google Cloud, bringing its Kyruus Connect for Payers solutions to Google Cloud Marketplace.

– The Google Cloud integration empowers health plans to simplify provider search, enhance member engagement, and guide patients towards cost-effective, high-quality care options.

Addressing Transparency and Access

Kyruus Health currently serves over 90 million health plan members.  Statistics reveal that:

• 44% of members avoid seeking care due to lack of price transparency.
• 80% of members desire direct care scheduling from their health plan’s website.

Kyruus Connect for Payers

Kyruus Connect for Payers tackles these challenges through data unification. Its features include:

• Streamlined Provider Search: Simplifies finding healthcare providers based on individual needs.
• Enhanced Member Engagement: Increases patient involvement in their healthcare journey.
• Cost-Effective Care Guidance: Guides members towards care options that balance cost and quality.
• Advanced Health Plan Growth and Compliance: Supports health plan growth while ensuring regulatory adherence.

Kyruus Health on Google Cloud Marketplace

Kyruus Health on Google Cloud Marketplace streamlines procurement for health plans. Customers can now securely acquire Kyruus Connect for Payers solutions through a trusted and established platform.

"Collaborating with Google Cloud allows us to further scale our care access platform, reaching a broader array of health plans while streamlining processes," said Gail Airasian, Chief Strategy Officer at Kyruus Health. "Together, we will help health plans deliver unparalleled, seamless experiences for their members."

What You Should Know:

• Verato, the identity experts for healthcare, today announced its partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate healthcare organizations’ ability to transform their businesses with an end-to-end, trusted enterprise identity data management solution – solving the problem that drives everything else – knowing who who is.
• Through this strategic partnership, Verato’s purpose-built-for-healthcare Master Data Management (hMDM) and Google Cloud’s enterprise-grade solutions that leverage the company’s cutting-edge technologies of BigQuery, Healthcare Data Engine, Healthcare API, and Vertex AI will be available at every touchpoint across the patient journey, enabling healthcare organizations to power cloud transformation, digital engagement, clinical interoperability, and provider data integrity initiatives.

Challenges and Solutions in Healthcare Data Management: Insights from Verato’s Survey and Collaboration with Google Cloud

Verato’s recent survey indicates that around two-thirds of healthcare organizations are not fully confident in their data management systems’ capability to ensure patient data integrity. Nevertheless, an overwhelming 97% anticipate negative repercussions from insufficient data management, especially with rising data volumes. Compliance with the Information Blocking Rule of the 21st Century Cures Act raises expectations for identity data standards, adding pressure on organizations to enhance their data infrastructure to avoid proposed disincentives for non-compliance.

Through the integration of Verato’s innovative hMDM solution and the scalable, dependable computing platform of Google Cloud, organizations can effectively analyze, process, and extract valuable insights from provider, patient, and member data. As healthcare entities transition their data to the cloud, establishing and maintaining a unified source of truth for patient, member, and provider identity data, as well as organizational and locational data, is paramount. The collaboration between Verato and Google Cloud will assist healthcare leaders in ensuring comprehensive identity data integrity across the organization during and after this transition. Moreover, the partnership will empower executives to attain a holistic and trustworthy longitudinal perspective of provider, patient, and member information from disparate data sources, thereby facilitating comprehensive care delivery.

Verato’s hMDM platform capitalizes on an extensive nationwide dataset of patients and providers, furnishing healthcare organizations with a comprehensive and reliable 360-degree view of their patients, members, providers, and communities.

“Healthcare organizations are looking for effective ways to access insights from data to better serve patients and improve quality of care and reduce operational costs,” says Riju Khetarpal, Director, HCLS ISV partnerships, Google Cloud. “With this partnership, we will help organizations across the healthcare spectrum tackle the most complex data harmonization challenges, unlocking insights and improving outcomes.”

What You Should Know:

– At HIMSS24, Google Cloud announced a suite of new generative AI solutions designed to address key challenges faced by healthcare and life sciences organizations.

– These solutions focus on improving interoperability, building a strong data foundation, and deploying generative AI (gen AI) tools to enhance patient outcomes.

Unlocking Gen AI to Improve Healthcare Efficiency

The healthcare industry is grappling with rising administrative costs, clinician burnout, and a global nursing shortage. Google Cloud emphasizes that gen AI solutions can empower healthcare workers and improve overall efficiency.

Introducing Vertex AI Search for Healthcare

Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Search for Healthcare empowers developers to build assistive technology that reduces administrative burdens for clinicians. This search tool offers several key features:

Medically-Tuned Search: Surfaces relevant information from diverse data sources (EHRs, scanned documents) without sifting through pages of notes.

Configurable APIs: Integrates seamlessly with clinician workflow tools.

Question-Answering: Allows clinicians to ask natural language questions about patient data (e.g., “Does the patient have a history of cancer?”).

Factuality: Results are grounded in real patient data and linked to specific data points for transparency and reduced risk of errors.

Data Platform Integration: Works with Healthcare Data Engine (HDE) for a unified patient data platform.

Deeper Medical Understanding: Complements MedLM tools for comprehensive medical information retrieval.

Early access to Vertex AI Search for Healthcare and life science integration with MedLM will be available to select customers.

“Not all generative AI is created equal, and in healthcare, the stakes are particularly high,” said Aashima Gupta, global director for Healthcare Strategy & Solutions, Google Cloud. “Healthcare organizations require enterprise-grade gen AI solutions, grounded in real data. Vertex AI Search for Healthcare is already making a difference for healthcare organizations by helping ensure clinicians have the right information and insights at the right time to inform decisions and improve the overall quality of patient care.”

Healthcare Data Engine Update

Google Cloud unveiled an update to Healthcare Data Engine (HDE), a managed service that helps organizations build interoperable data platforms. Key updates include:

Simplified Management and Pricing: Consumption-based pricing model makes HDE more accessible.

Global Availability: Expands beyond North America to Europe and Asia Pacific regions.

Low-Code Data Mapping: HDE Data Mapper facilitates data transformation for building high-quality longitudinal patient records in FHIR format.

Foundation for AI and Analytics: Integration with Vertex AI Search allows for comprehensive data exploration and empowers clinicians to save valuable time.

MedLM Gets Smarter

MedLM, a suite of AI models for healthcare, offers new capabilities:

MedLM for Chest X-ray: Classifies chest x-rays for various use cases.

Condition Summary API: Generates a chronological list of patient conditions with AI-powered summaries and citations.

Focus on Data Security and Control

Google Cloud prioritizes data security. Patient data access and use is protected by robust infrastructure, secure data storage compliant with HIPAA, and adherence to customer-defined security and privacy controls.

Continuous Innovation

Google Cloud is committed to ongoing development. New functionalities will be added to the MedLM suite in the coming months, offering even more capabilities for healthcare and life science organizations.

What You Should Know:

– Highmark Health announced a collaboration with Epic and Google Cloud to revolutionize payer-provider collaboration and personalize the patient experience.

– The strategic integration leverages Epic’s Payer Platform and Google Cloud’s data analytics capabilities to empower both health insurers and healthcare providers.

Breaking Down Communication Barriers

Highmark Health leverages Epic’s Payer Platform, which fosters collaboration between payers and providers.  By connecting to Google Cloud’s data analytics tools (BigQuery and Healthcare Data Engine), valuable insights can now be shared effectively:

– Actionable Insights for Patients: Highmark members will receive personalized guidance on their healthcare journeys through integrated digital channels like the My Highmark member portal.

– Enhanced Clinician View: Clinicians using Epic will gain a more comprehensive picture of their patients’ health through payer-derived insights. This includes medical history, coverage details, and potential care gaps.

– Reduced Out-of-Pocket Costs: Accurate insurance information empowers providers to select high-quality, covered services, minimizing surprise billing for patients.

Streamlining Administrative Tasks

Automated information exchange through Epic’s platform facilitates smoother workflows:

– Faster Care Authorizations: Automated processes expedite service approvals, reducing wait times for patients.

– Improved Care Management: Identification of care gaps allows for proactive intervention, potentially leading to better health outcomes.

– Efficient Communication: Automated notifications streamline communication between health systems and Highmark regarding patient events (e.g., emergency room visits, admissions, discharges). This eliminates time-consuming methods like phone calls and faxes.

“Epic’s Payer Platform is a powerful resource that enables payers and providers to work more effectively together. Pairing that resource with Google Cloud’s technology gives Highmark Health the ability to change the paradigm,” said Tony Farah, MD, executive vice president, chief medical and clinical transformation officer, Highmark Health. “It’s another step forward in achieving better experiences for both consumers and clinicians, while improving health outcomes and lowering cost of care.”

What You Should Know:

– WellSky, a health and community care technology company, and Google Cloud have announced a strategic partnership to leverage cutting-edge cloud technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) to transform healthcare delivery across the continuum.

– The strategic collaboration aims to provide care providers with smarter tools, automate repetitive tasks, and ultimately, improve patient outcomes. Google Cloud’s governance and privacy policies empower clients to retain control over how their tools are used, while its responsible approach to generative AI allows for continuous monitoring, review, and ethical utilization within specific contexts.

Vertex AI: Unleashing the Power of Generative AI

WellSky will utilize Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, granting access to advanced data analytics tools, machine learning capabilities, and powerful generative AI models. This partnership will accelerate WellSky’s ongoing IT modernization efforts, enabling them to anticipate client needs and proactively deliver intelligent care solutions.

Streamlining Care and Empowering Providers

WellSky envisions integrating AI tools into their solutions to automate repetitive tasks, freeing up valuable time for human interaction and personalized care. Imagine healthcare providers having immediate access to relevant patient history, trends, and anomalies during care transitions, allowing for more informed and efficient decision-making. Additionally, automating portions of the OASIS assessment in Medicare home healthcare will grant caregivers more time to focus on individual patient needs.

“AI technology can serve as a fundamental tool in making healthcare insights more accessible and meaningful for clinicians. As with any tool at our disposal, we will implement it in a way that is focused on helping caregivers improve patient outcomes, provide more effective services, and increase efficiency,” said WellSky CEO Bill Miller. “I see no shortage of possibilities in this emerging space.”.

We understand AI has an important role to play in healthcare innovation, but we also understand that we bear a considerable responsibility for how we implement AI in a secure and ethical way,” said Miller. “WellSky is steadfastly committed to following the principles of privacy, fairness, reliability, equity, transparency, and accountability in the design, development, and deployment of our solutions. We resolve to use AI in a manner that is aligned with our mission, is responsible, and provides value to our clients and the patients they serve.”

What You Should Know:

– Community Health Systems (CHS), a healthcare provider with 71 hospitals across 15 states announced the successful deployment of its clinical data to a secure, Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-based platform on Google Cloud.

– The deployment, coupled with the planned implementation of generative AI (gen AI) technologies, marks a significant step towards streamlining operations, improving patient care, and empowering healthcare professionals. By embracing data unification and AI innovation, CHS is paving the way for a future where healthcare is more efficient, personalized, and ultimately, better for patients and providers alike.

Unifying Data, Empowering Insights

Prior to the migration, CHS faced the challenge of fragmented data stored across various locations and formats. Accessing and analyzing this information was cumbersome and time-consuming. Google Cloud’s FHIR-based platform acts as a central hub, bringing all data together in a standardized format that enables seamless interoperability and real-time insights. This single source of truth empowers clinicians and administrators to:

• Gain a holistic view of patient data: Quickly access comprehensive medical records, improving clinical decision-making.
• Track key operational metrics: Monitor bed capacity, emergency room wait times, and other critical factors in real-time, enabling proactive interventions.
• Generate actionable insights: Leverage BigQuery, Google Cloud’s data warehouse solution, to analyze data and identify trends, leading to improved patient outcomes and resource allocation.

Revolutionizing Care with Gen AI

CHS isn’t stopping at data unification. They are actively exploring the potential of gen AI to further transform healthcare delivery. Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and large language models will be key tools in this endeavor, with applications including:

• Enhanced Clinical Documentation: Gen AI can assist clinicians in capturing the complexity of care, ensuring accurate and concise documentation.
• Automated Administrative Tasks: Repetitive administrative tasks like generating denial appeal letters can be automated, freeing up valuable time for patient interaction.
• Personalized Patient Support: By analyzing patient data and social determinants of health, CHS can provide patients with tailored resources and support, improving overall well-being.

“The goal of this migration extends well beyond modernizing our data infrastructure,” said Miguel S. Benet, MD, Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations at CHS. “By building a secure foundation to take advantage of new innovations in AI, we’re able to streamline our clinical providers’ workflow and advance the way we deliver patient care.”

What You Should Know:

– Fathom, the leader in AI-powered medical coding automation, has announced its groundbreaking solution will be available on Google Cloud Marketplace starting in Q1 2024.

– This strategic partnership brings together two industry giants, offering healthcare organizations a powerful one-stop shop for streamlining revenue cycle management and claiming the benefits of cutting-edge technology.

Fathom: Automating the Revenue Cycle:

The healthcare industry faces a critical shortage of qualified medical coders, with the American Medical Association estimating a 30% deficit. This bottleneck creates significant challenges, impacting billing accuracy, revenue capture, and overall operational efficiency. Fathom steps in to address this head-on, offering:

– Reduced coder workload: Automate up to 80% of medical coding tasks, freeing up valuable staff time for higher-level duties.

– Improved accuracy and reduced denials: Fathom’s AI algorithms boast impressive accuracy, minimizing claim denials and ensuring proper reimbursement.

– Enhanced revenue capture: Accurate and timely coding translates into maximized revenue for healthcare organizations.

– Cost savings and efficiency gains: Streamlined processes and reduced administrative burden lead to significant cost savings.

Leveraging the Power of Google Cloud

The integration with Google Cloud Marketplace offers several advantages for healthcare providers:

– Frictionless procurement: Easily access and deploy Fathom’s solution with streamlined onboarding and billing.

– Unified billing: Consolidate expenses across Google Cloud and Fathom for simplified billing management.

– Technical support: Benefit from Google Cloud’s expert technical support team for seamless integration and ongoing assistance.

– Data interoperability: Take advantage of Google Cloud’s robust data interoperability capabilities to connect with other healthcare IT systems.

The Future of Medical Coding

The integration of Fathom’s AI coding solution with Google Cloud Marketplace marks a significant step forward for healthcare technology. This partnership offers healthcare providers a compelling opportunity to automate tedious coding tasks, improve financial performance, and ultimately focus on what matters most – delivering high-quality patient care. As the industry continues to embrace AI and cloud-based solutions, Fathom is well-positioned to play a leading role in shaping the future of medical coding and revenue cycle management.

What You Should Know:

– Augmedix, a leader in ambient medical documentation, is partnering with Google Cloud to integrate MedLM, a new healthcare-focused generative AI model, into its technology stack.

– This strategic integration partnership aims to improve the quality and efficiency of medical note generation, ultimately benefiting healthcare providers and patients alike.

Medical-Focused Generative AI Model Integration

Augmedix will integrate MedLM, a medical-focused generative AI model, into its existing technology stack. This will significantly enhance the quality and speed of medical note output, enabling faster turnaround times and expansion into new medical specialties. The partnership builds upon Augmedix’s existing AI infrastructure, which already processes 70,000 notes per week across 30 specialties. This robust data foundation will further refine MedLM’s performance in real-world clinical settings.

Augmedix Go Integration

Augmedix Go, a recently launched mobile app for clinicians, will be one of the first products to incorporate MedLM. This integration will automatically generate draft medical notes after each patient visit, reducing administrative burden and freeing up clinicians’ time for patient care.

Overall, the integration of MedLM into Augmedix’s technology stack holds significant promise for the future of medical documentation and patient care. By leveraging Google’s cutting-edge AI technology and Augmedix’s expertise in ambient documentation, the collaboration has the potential to significantly improve the quality and efficiency of medical note generation.

“Generative AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare documentation, and our partnership with Augmedix exemplifies our commitment to solving these challenges,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud.

What You Should Know:

– Fraser Health Authority, a healthcare organization in Canada, is set to become one of the first health systems worldwide to deploy generative AI for clinical documentation.

– This innovative initiative utilizes Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and large language models (LLMs) to automatically generate initial drafts of hospital course narratives at the time of discharge, significantly reducing the time burden on clinicians and improving the efficiency of discharge workflows.

Generative AI Benefits

Traditional discharge summaries can be time-consuming to compose, requiring clinicians to manually input and summarize a patient’s entire hospital stay. This process can be tedious and detract from valuable patient care time. Generative AI offers a promising solution by automatically generating draft summaries, freeing up clinicians’ time to focus on other critical tasks and provide better care to their patients. This pilot project marks a significant step forward in utilizing AI technology to improve healthcare delivery and optimize workflow efficiency.

Collaboration Details

Fraser Health Authority partnered with MEDITECH and Google Cloud to implement this innovative solution within the Expanse EHR platform. The collaboration leverages MEDITECH’s expertise in EHR technology and Google Cloud’s cutting-edge AI capabilities to deliver a practical and safe solution for healthcare professionals.

Looking Ahead

The success of this pilot project has the potential to significantly impact the way healthcare providers document patient information. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative use cases emerge, ultimately leading to a more efficient and effective healthcare system for all.

What You Should Know:

– CipherHealth, a provider of patient-centered engagement launches a new strategic initiative to leverage Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform to revolutionize hospital operations and patient care.

– CipherHealth is building, training, deploying, and managing machine learning and AI models across products and across the spectrum of care.

Google Cloud’s Vertex AI to Accelerate Development of AI and Machine Learning Models

CipherHealth selected Google Cloud to facilitate a holistic approach to machine learning. Through Vertex AI, sitting on a foundation of secure, interoperable data, Cipherhealth’s data science team can fully construct, fine-tune, oversee and integrate machine learning models into various business processes. They are designed to cater to diverse modalities, such as free text (natural language), voice, vision, and tabular data. The entire initiative exists on CipherHealth’s HiTrust-certified Evolve Platform.

These AI solutions will aim to dramatically accelerate issue resolution, power sophisticated patient experiences, enhance automation, and lead with bi-directional communication. Ultimately, CipherHealth plans to use AI to create personalized care pathways for patients at all stages of care. The highly tuned model will engage, analyze, and adapt to the patient’s inputs to deliver timely insights to clinicians and an intuitive, empathetic experience for patients.

“We’re thrilled to leverage the full power of AI and machine learning to help healthcare leaders improve patient experience, staff satisfaction, and hospital operations,” said Nate Perry-Thistle, CipherHealth Chief Product & Technology Officer. “This important step will empower us to change the paradigm of patient engagement and help hospitals drive transformative growth.”

What You Should Know: 

– Google Cloud and CareCloud, today announced a strategic partnership that will bring the power of generative AI to small and medium-sized healthcare providers. 

– Utilizing Google Cloud’s generative AI, CareCloud will transform and enhance the operational efficiency of ambulatory practices in office settings, enabling physicians to make more informed treatment decisions and improving cost transparency between healthcare providers and patients. 

CareCloud, Google Cloud Integration Benefits

By leveraging Generative AI support on Vertex AI and Enterprise Search on Generative AI App Builder, CareCloud aims to provide doctors and clinicians with timely access to the data they need. The addition of the new technologies in CareCloud solutions will enable smaller clinics and doctor’s offices, often facing resource constraints, to benefit from cutting-edge technology similar to large hospital systems. The first CareCloud solution with generative AI is expected to be available in the coming months, offering improved healthcare services and accessibility to advanced technology for a broader range of clinics. 

The integration will enable physicians using CareCloud solutions to ask complex questions, gain valuable insights, and receive evidence-based recommendations by analyzing large amounts of patient data while complying with privacy laws. For example, when a patient comes into a clinic using CareCloud, the generative AI-based solution will surface relevant information and assist clinicians and doctors as they recommend a plan of care, including medications, lab orders, diagnoses, and procedures based on their previous clinical history and current symptoms. Based on the recommended diagnoses, patient insurance, and other information, the solution will be able to show the clinic and patient what costs would be paid by the insurance and what amount would be owed by the patient.

Data Governance

Google Cloud’s approach to data governance and privacy policies ensures its customers retain control over their data. In healthcare settings, access and use of patient data is appropriately protected through the implementation of Google Cloud’s reliable infrastructure and secure data storage that support HIPAA compliance, along with each customer’s security, privacy controls, and processes. Google Cloud’s responsible approach to generative AI also means customers have access to tools to directly tune large language models and to review model responses for biased or unvalidated content, teaching the model to avoid inappropriate outputs. 

What You Should Know:

• 4medica®, a healthcare data quality and matching technology company, today announced that the 4medica Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) platform is now available on Google Cloud Marketplace.
• Built on Google Cloud’s Healthcare API, 4medica’s EMPI offers healthcare organizations access to a highly scalable data management services such as referential matching and identity enrichment.

Impact of Poor Healthcare Data Quality

Far too many healthcare organizations struggle with duplication rates of 20% or more. Inability to accurately match patients to their medical records makes it difficult for clinicians to make evidence-based decisions at the point of care. Inaccurate and incomplete patient records can result in poorer outcomes, medico-legal exposure and operational inefficiencies.

Applying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to their EMPI data allows healthcare organizations to see patterns, opportunities and gaps that need attention. 4medica’s EMPI platform uses a four-layer process that begins with an analysis of a healthcare organization’s data quality to determine the duplication rate. Data then is run through 4medica’s Big Data MPI, after which ML is applied to automate error detection. Step 3 connects patient data with multiple third-party sources of information for referential matching and data enrichment. A comprehensive review of outstanding duplicate candidates and false positives by the 4medica data science team comprises the final layer.

“Poor data quality undermines the ability of healthcare organizations to improve patient outcomes while controlling costs,” said Riju Khetarpal, director, Healthcare and Life Sciences ISV Partnerships at Google Cloud. “With 4medica’s Master Patient Index now available on Google Cloud Marketplace, customers are able to build high quality data pipelines which improve patient safety and efficiency.”

What You Should Know:

• The benefits of public cloud are promising, as many Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft customers (both provider organizations and vendors) have noted in previous KLAS research. The first health systems using a public hyperscale cloud provider (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure) to support their EHR environment in the cloud have begun to go live, and interest in this approach is gaining momentum, particularly among Epic organizations. Most who are pursuing this path are just beginning their journey, but some are actively selecting their public cloud provider and planning next steps.
• KLAS recently interviewed 10 organizations who are considering moving part or all of their Epic environment to the cloud. This report shares which public cloud providers they are considering, what Epic environments they may move to the cloud, what goals and concerns they have, and what role third-party firms will play in the transition.

Which Public Cloud Providers Are Early Movers Considering?

This report is the result of a perception study where healthcare organizations shared their decision-making process around moving their Epic environments to the cloud. To gather these perspectives, KLAS used a supplemental evaluation to interview 10 healthcare organizations that are actively considering moving part or all of their Epic environment to the cloud. Data was collected between September 2022 and January 2023.

Key insights and trends are as follows:

1. Microsoft Azure Often a Front-Runner Due to Respondents Already Leveraging Azure or Microsoft Tools in Other Areas: Microsoft Azure is frequently considered in this sample. The bulk of respondents considering Microsoft Azure for their public cloud provider are currently leveraging Azure in other areas; they have Azure workloads set up or utilize Microsoft Office 365. Thus, they want to take advantage of the existing relationship, infrastructure, and expertise (Epic publishes architectural guidance for Microsoft Azure) to move their Epic environment to the cloud. Additionally, some believe the existing relationship will accelerate the contracting process and help them effectively negotiate their contract to manage costs. Scalability is frequently brought up as a concern and is preventing some from seriously considering Microsoft Azure; respondents believe the cloud provider doesn’t support larger organizations as well as AWS does. To address this concern, respondents would like Microsoft to show more evidence of supporting customers their size and to provide professional services that facilitate customer success.
2. AWS’ Epic Expertise and Strong Bench of Technical Resources Drive Considerations: Because AWS introduced broad cloud capabilities to the market relatively early, they are frequently considered in this sample and perceived as being ahead of Microsoft Azure in developing the capabilities healthcare organizations need. Reasons for consideration include existing proof points with other Epic customers, technical expertise (Epic publishes architectural guidance for AWS), and a strong bench of resources that can provide professional services, support onboarding, and help develop organizations’ long-term cloud strategies beyond moving their EHR to the cloud. Among those who likely won’t select AWS, one feels AWS has an immature healthcare focus and hasn’t yet built up clinical subject matter expertise, while another feels the overall cost—when factoring in AWS’ partner costs—is much higher than other similarly structured options. Further, because many respondents already use Microsoft products—including Microsoft Azure—at their organizations, some are contemplating moving forward with Azure to consolidate contracts and vendor relationships.
3. Most Respondents Want to Quickly Leverage Disaster Recovery Capabilities while Moving Their Production Environment to the Cloud over Next Year or Two: Several interviewed organizations feel a sense of urgency to begin transitioning to the cloud, though their reasons for doing so vary. Some want to avoid making significant capital investments in hardware, improve data security, and find alternatives to current hosting options that can’t meet their needs. Most respondents want to use the cloud for disaster recovery within the first three months of contracting with their public cloud provider; this would give them ample opportunity to test the migration process and safeguard against the need to resort

to paper during an outage. Moving to a full production environment is then expected to take one or two years. Beyond moving the EHR to the cloud, almost all respondents plan to take advantage of having Cogito data in their cloud environment. They also anticipate moving other applications (both Epic and non-Epic) to the cloud. Respondents who anticipate taking the longest to move to the cloud say that finding skilled resources, developing a deep understanding of cloud architecture, and consolidating their health system onto one EHR are constraints that will likely slow them down.

• For Most Respondents, Capital Cost Reduction Is the Primary Goal of Moving to the Cloud; However, Uncertainty around Costs Are the Primary Concern: Respondents’ number-one goal in moving their Epic environment to the cloud is to cut capital costs by eliminating hardware investments. Further, public cloud providers’ flexible contracting (which allows organizations to pay for only the cloud services they use) is anticipated to help reduce spending; those considering AWS mention this benefit more frequently than organizations considering other public cloud providers. Other frequently mentioned goals include improved system reliability and uptime and fewer FTEs providing on-premises support. Though capital cost reduction is the main driver for moving to the cloud, cost uncertainty is the top concern. There are many variables that make the true cost of cloud hosting difficult to nail down, and respondents worry their costs could increase in the long run if their cloud environment isn’t architected properly, if utilization isn’t effectively monitored, or if their cloud provider increases the price when the contract renews. Additionally, several respondents (particularly those at larger organizations) are concerned about scalability, as public hyperscale cloud providers are still relatively new to hosting Epic in a production environment. Respondents are also concerned their staff doesn’t have the needed skills to support a move to the cloud.
• Most Respondents Anticipate Using Third-Party Firms to Support Their Cloud Migration; Management Consulting Firms Are Top of Mind: Although respondents plan to leverage public cloud providers’ professional services to move to the cloud, some feel the cloud providers may not have a sufficiently deep bench of resources to meet their needs. Also, the organizations lack the staff and skills to effectively manage the transition themselves—70% feel only somewhat prepared to move to the cloud. As a result, most respondents are considering using a third-party firm to support their cloud migration. They hope these firms will be able to supplement public cloud providers’ engineering resources, assist with training their internal resources, and provide effective processes and road maps during the transition. In addition to using third-party firms, some respondents are currently leveraging firms to help build their cloud business cases and assess their organization’s readiness. Of those who anticipate using a third-party firm in the future, half are unsure which firm they will use. The other half plans to partner with traditional management consulting firms, specifically Accenture, Deloitte, EY, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and PwC.