Google Cloud has teamed with a group of healthcare providers to launch a series of healthcare data engine (HDE) accelerators designed to streamline access to health information.
“Frequently, the information healthcare leaders and administrators need is siloed and isn’t easy to access,” the company said in a news release Monday (Nov. 14). “It may be buried deep in the patient record or spread across IT systems that don’t speak to each other. Improving the flow and unification of data across healthcare systems, referred to as interoperability, is critical to helping organizations run more effectively, improving patient care and enabling people to live healthier lives.”
The accelerators will be available next year, using Cloud’s infrastructure to provide HIPAA compliance and customer data protection, according to the release.
According to Google, the HDEs will focus on three areas. First is health equity, with the HDE offering tools to let healthcare organizations connect patients to community resources. Another will deal with value-based care, helping healthcare organizations examine trends and determine “key population health metrics from combining claims and clinical data.”
The third will deal with patient flow, helping health systems “understand a broad range of patient flow metrics to surface trends, potential drivers, and bottlenecks to help inform clinical operations performance initiatives.”
As PYMNTS noted in September, healthcare data workflows are infamously disconnected and inefficient, adding cost, time and anxiety into already-tense medical situations. It’s an area overdue for disruption, and yet surprisingly behind the digital transformation curve that’s reinventing other parts of everyday life.
“Healthcare is probably trailing in that shift,” Lynx Co-founder and Chief Information Officer Ken Abel told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster at the time.
He said many patients have found themselves asking why healthcare payments can’t function more like PayPal.
“What is really driving everything is that individuals are starting to expect more out of these experiences, aligned with what they get from Venmo, what they get from Cash App in terms of real time and transparency,” Abel said. “The traditional players in healthcare have sort of lagged in that, but that’s part of the services that Lynx is bringing forward to really help bridge the gap.”
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More