Amazon Web Services exec: Cloud innovation critical to changing payment models, treating chronic disease, aging population
Cloud computing is the new normal across all industries — and healthcare is quickly coming into step with that reality. Many organizations that are moving healthcare technology forward, in fact, rely on the cloud to give them the agility, cost savings and breadth of functionality they require to do just that.
“Healthcare organizations can pilot new ideas, rapidly scale the ones that work, and simply turn off ones that don’t without wasting additional resources,” AWS director of healthcare and life sciences Steve Halliwell said in a pre-HIMSS17 interview. “Technical lock-in is not a concept that applies to customers building on top of AWS, as it’s easy to switch to different technology if it makes sense for you and your patients.”
What’s more, Halliwell said that the shifting regulatory environment, changing payment models, an aging population, and a higher incidence of chronic disease, all make innovation critical to the industry.
Recent examples of AWS-powered healthcare innovations are University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s, petabyte-scale data lakes project which combines and analyzes multiple data sources and clinical applications and Cleveland Clinic’s Healthy Brains Initiative which gives patients and neurologists a way to enter and analyze information about conditions and activities that affect brain health, all of which leave the behind the scenes heavy lifting to AWS.
That includes information security, Halliwell said, explaining that Amazon manages some 1,800 security controls for organizations large and small alike.
Amazon Web Services will be in Booth 6969.
HIMSS17 runs from Feb. 19-23, 2017 at the Orange County Convention Center.
This article is part of our ongoing coverage of HIMSS17. Visit Destination HIMSS17 for previews, reporting live from the show floor and after the conference.
