The platform will enable healthcare organizations to easily view relevant data by leveraging analytics and AI.
Google Cloud unveiled this week the Healthcare Data Engine, a new end-to-end tool designed for scalable data management and analytics in health care and life sciences applications. The platform will allow organizations to view patient information in near real-time and provide access to advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) via a secure cloud environment. This means that users can gain insight from various data sources, such as medical records, claims, clinical trials or research data, under a single, streamlined platform. The technology is currently available for private preview via exclusive Google Cloud partners.
According to Google Cloud, Healthcare Data Engine builds on and extends the core capabilities of the Google Cloud Healthcare API, which allows users to easily exchange data between healthcare applications and solutions built on Google Cloud. It was officially launched last year and is supported by healthcare data standards such as FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource) and HL7v2. This means that it is quicker and easier to integrate. It is also equipped with data processing and scalable analytics software, such as BigQuery, which are capable of harmonizing and analyzing data as it’s inputted.
Healthcare Data Engine is capable of mapping over 90 percent of HL7v2 messages to FHIR, such as medication orders and patient updates, across leading electronic health records. The integration of BigQuery provides analytics and AI for healthcare applications, allowing organizations to process and visualize petabytes of their own patient data. The platform also has access to Google Cloud’s scalable HIPAA-compliant managed services, allowing healthcare organizations to quickly scale according to their fluctuating needs across all systems and facilities. Healthcare Data Engine also uses Google’s cloud configuration and built-in data protection that complies with HIPAA and HITRUST best practices.
Heath data can now be collected from various data sources, such as wearables that are worn by patients. Healthcare organizations have traditionally relied on enterprise data warehouses and electronic health records to perform retrospective analytics. According to ZDnet, by improving access to insights, organizations will be able to improve resource utilization, optimize clinical trials and accelerate research. This will also enable healthcare professionals to quickly identify high-risk patients, subsequently reducing physician burnout.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how access to information is crucial to saving the lives of patients. “We built Healthcare Data Engine to make it easier for healthcare and life sciences organizations to bring together their data silos to innovate and improve health outcomes,” said Joe Corkery, M.D., Google Cloud’s director of product management. Google Cloud reportedly worked with the Mayo Clinic to develop the platform’s automation process.
As of now, Google Cloud partners Deloitte, Maven Wave, Quantiphi and SADA are slated to be implementation partners to assist with deployment to healthcare and life sciences customers. ISV partners, such as data science agency Mathematica, are also planning on deploying applications that integrate the Healthcare Data Engine platform.