Seqster, which develops tools for patient-generated longitudinal health records – incorporating EHR information, genomic profiles, wearable device data and more – has launched the most recent version of its platform on Microsoft Azure cloud.

WHY IT MATTERS

Seqster Platform v7.1 is a HIPAA- and FDA 21 CFR PART 11-compliant multi-cloud platform. It features new security, scalability and customization capabilities, according to the San Diego-based company. The platform, which connects users to more than 3,000 health systems nationwide. It's also compliant with new CMS and ONC 21st Century Cures Act rules.

With help from Azure, Kubernetes and Istio, Seqster can now automate the deployment and scaling of its app containers without the need for DevOps. It also offers encryption for data in transit among resources and enhanced logging for observability and policy adherence, according to the company.

It lists the new features of Seqster 7.1 as follows:

• Enhanced security using Azure Key Vault and Istio Service Mesh.
• High availability cluster with redundancy across availability zones.
• Customizable user interface for white-label branding.
• Single and Multi-Tenant options.
• Massively scalable object storage with Azure Blob Storage for EHR documents, Medical Images and DNA sequence files.
• Single-Sign-On integration with Oauth2 Authentication.
• FDA 21 CFR Part 11 Compliant for Clinical Trial data handling.

The HITRUST CSF-certified platform, offers enterprise clients a controlled environment with fulltime operational monitoring and support.

Seqster also aims to giver researchers and clinicians a user-friendly experience and speed the onboarding of research participants into clinical trials. The company notes that patients can use the platform to track their health data throughout the studies and beyond, since it enables delivery of EHR documents directly to regulated clinical trial management systems and allows eConsent-based visualization of participant health data.

THE LARGER TREND

In 2018, we showed how one Alzheimer's care center used the Seqster platform to link EHR data, wearables data, ancestry data and genomics to help offer caregivers, researchers and family members easier one-stop access to critical information.

A year ago, the company announced a series of updates, such as FHIR-based clinical data retrieval and an API to more easily share data among payers, pharma and providers.

The Seqster platform has attracted some high-profile fans in recent years, such as famed digital health pioneer Dr. Eric Topol. (Read our interview with him here.)

1st time I've been able to get my medical data from 1985 -> present
4 health systems @ScrippsHealth @UCSDHealth @ClevelandClinic @umichmedicine + @23andMe + @fitbit +@MyFitnessPal with labs from diff't systems all connected @seqster (trying it <24 hrs)
step in the right direction pic.twitter.com/25W0cDqKOr

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) August 21, 2018

ON THE RECORD

"With the latest release of the Seqster platform, we provide end-to-end patient data delivery on Microsoft Azure so that our enterprise clients can transition from existing outdated retrieval methods to real-time, structured EHR data retrieval," said Seqster CEO and cofounder Ardy Arianpour in a statement. "Seqster pioneered person-centric interoperability and now offers a turn-key multi-cloud solution driven by and for our pharma clients."

"Microsoft welcomes Seqster into the Azure family of products for patient-centric healthcare and interoperability," added Trent Norris, Microsoft’s director of life sciences. "By leveraging Azure Key Vault, Storage Containers and Azure Kubernetes Service, Seqster has created a secure, scalable platform for enterprise-class medical data retrieval, visualization, and integration for healthcare providers, payers, pharma and medical researchers."

Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN
Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com
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