Amazon recently announced its quarterly earnings reporting $4.58 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2017. This was an increase of 42% over the second quarter earnings, and inching towards $20 billion in annual revenue. It has captured large clients in energy, technology, financial services and government to make it one of the largest cloud computing services in the world. To fuel its further growth, the tech giant is looking at cloud computing for health services.
Cerner is a major player in health tech as it accounts for 25% of the total electronic medical records market. It is currently working on modernizing the health records of the several big organizations including the Department of Defense.
The company is currently in final talks with electronic health records vendor Cerner. Cerner’s population health product, HealtheIntent helps hospitals and medical staff to gather, collate and analyze big data in the form of clinical information to lower patient treatment costs and improve health outcomes.
Besides health, Amazon is also pursuing government cloud use with potential clients in the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA. It announced plans for a dedicated group of data centers specifically for these high-security clients.
In the health sector, competitors are making major moves. Microsoft’s Azure has the second largest market share in cloud services. It recently reorganized its sales group to focus on six core industries, which included health care, while Google’s cloud computing has wrangled big names including defense contractor Northrop Grumman, as well as the National Institute on Aging.
For Amazon, Cerner is a natural fit. During the 2016 re:Invent conference held in Las Vegas, a high-level Cerner executive presented HealtheIntent’s use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their computing, storage, database and networking and “on-demand disaster recovery.” The news about Cerner and AWS is a big boost of confidence for the industry.
With the help of Cerner’s HealtheIntent, Amazon can make a big headway in the healthcare sector. It can leverage on Cerner’s access to the biggest health providers and hospitals. For more than 3 years, AWS has provided cloud and network support to Healthcare.gov, where it has developed ecommerce programs enabling millions on Medicare and Medicaid to compare and shop for their health insurance needs. AWS has also provided an identity management system as well as a tool which determines eligibility for health care plans based on the user’s income and other variables.
Credibility and Security in the Cloud
Having a health tech vendor acknowledge your product gives more credibility to AWS. Amazon and Cerner are set to launch something bigger than just the cloud services. It will provide hospitals and other big medical and health service providers access to Cerner’s HealtheIntent engine, coupled with AWS speed, growth capability and advanced AI functional technology. This synergy of functions can help a researcher or an analyst with information about specific populations, use their existing medical records, and other data including prescriptions and insurance claims. The information gathered can help in making informed recommendations to practitioners and health providers for correct medications and dosages or in identifying high-risk individuals.
Cerner is a major player in health tech as it accounts for 25% of the total electronic medical records market. It is currently working on modernizing the health records of the several big organizations including the Department of Defense.
Despite all the efforts by various large companies, the health industry continuous to be wary of change. This is due mainly to government rules and regulations on how sensitive individual health information is stored. The role of the traditional data center is well understood by health providers, whereas cloud storage is suspect in comparison. By using Cerner’s presence and expertise in hospital records and patient information management, AWS can assure clients that patient information is secure in the Amazon cloud servers.
