Whether they’re caring for patients or advancing research towards a cure, healthcare and life sciences organizations are on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19. We know that the pandemic is impacting every aspect of the healthcare industry differently, and that the needs of organizations are rapidly evolving.

Our goal is to bring our technology expertise to bear in helping your experts—so that healthcare organizations can focus on providing the best care to as many people as possible. To help tackle this challenge, we’re announcing today the general availability of our Cloud Healthcare API, and we’re also sharing a number of other industry-tailored solutions to support our customers and partners during this time.

Google Cloud Healthcare API

Healthcare providers’ access to real-time, unified healthcare data is critical—and every second matters. As the industry is pushed to its limits in light of COVID-19, the need for increased data interoperability is more important than ever. In the last few months, the industry has laid the foundation for progress with final rules issued by CMS and ONC, implementing key provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act. Today, healthcare organizations are in dire need of easy-to-use technology that supports health information exchange.

To address this gap, we’ve made our Cloud Healthcare API generally available today to the industry at-large. The API allows healthcare organizations to ingest and manage key data from a range of inputs and systems—and then better understand that data through the application of analytics and machine learning in real time, at scale. It also enables providers to easily interact with that data using Web-friendly, REST-based endpoints and health plans to rapidly get up and running with a cloud based FHIR server providing the capabilities needed to implement, scale and support interoperability and patient access.

Since launching our partnership last year, the Mayo Clinic has been relying on our Healthcare API to enable the storage and interoperability of its clinical data. “We’re in a time where technology needs to work fast, securely, and most importantly in a way that furthers our dedication to our patients,” said John Halamka, M.D., president of Mayo Clinic Platform. “Google Cloud’s Healthcare API accelerates data liquidity among stakeholders, and in-return, will help us better serve our patients.”

For healthcare and life science organizations, gathering a unified view of FHIR, HL7v2 and DICOM data is often a herculean effort, due to complicated and siloed systems within their care environments. With the Cloud Healthcare API and our partner ecosystem, our goal is to make it as simple as possible for the industry to make informed, data-driven decisions, so that caregivers can focus on what matters most: saving lives.

Additional solutions to support healthcare providers in the fight against COVID-19

In addition to the Cloud Healthcare API, we are highlighting a number of solutions this week to help healthcare organizations, researchers, and patients navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Working in partnership with Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps Platform, and other groups across Alphabet, these solutions include:

• Virtual care and telehealth services—Healthcare providers can offer patients video appointments through Google Meet and leverage G Suite to keep patient information in Google Docs, Sheets or other files stored in Google Drive that can be accessed and updated from anywhere using laptops, tablets or smartphones, all while maintaining data security and HIPAA compliance.
• Collaboration capabilities for remote work—With G Suite and Google Meet, healthcare and life science organizations are able to virtually connect with colleagues to drive conversations and projects forward while dealing with the new norm of remote working mandates. And with Chrome Enterprise, healthcare providers, like Hackensack Meridian Health, are freed from fixed workstations with mobile access to the files and information they need on the go.
• 24/7 conversational self-service support—Our new Rapid Response Virtual Agent, which launched last week, helps organizations like the University of Pennsylvania provide immediate responses to patients and disseminate accurate information quickly during this critical time—taking the burden off overworked health hotlines and call centers.
• High-demand public health datasets—We’re helping healthcare organizations study COVID-19 with a pre-hosted repository of public healthcare datasets. And local providers and emergency planners can also apply Looker’s pre-built analyses and dashboards to these datasets.
• Visualization of essential services—Using Google Maps Platform in conjunction with COVID-19 datasets, healthcare organizations can locate critical equipment, provide testing site locations, give patients directions, and route medical deliveries to recipients. Earlier this month, we announced a new initiative with HCA Healthcare and SADA, called the National Response Portal, to help U.S. hospital systems better track important data on ventilator utilization, ICU bed capacity, COVID-19 testing results and more.
• Google Cloud research credits—We’re also enabling researchers, educational institutions, non-profits, and pharma companies to advance their COVID-19 research by accessing scalable computing power. Eligible organizations can apply for research credits to receive funding for projects related to potential treatments, techniques, and datasets. See Eligibility and FAQs.

Although we’re still in the early days of this fight, the stronger we work together as businesses, organizations, and communities, the better we’re able to secure positive outcomes. We’re here to help, and we have teams working closely with healthcare organizations across the country to support the unique needs that are emerging in response to COVID-19. We’re amazed by the global response we’ve seen to date, and are humbled by the opportunity to continue to play a key part in helping healthcare organizations deliver care during the pandemic.

To learn more, please visit: cloud.google.com/covid19-healthcare.

Joe Corkery, MD & Aashima Gupta

Source: Google Cloud Blog