In at present’s quickly evolving healthcare panorama, digital transformation is not a luxurious however a necessity. One of the vital vital elements of this transformation is the digital well being document (EHR) system, which performs a pivotal function in healthcare operations and care supply. Organizations are actively exploring options for his or her conventional on-premises infrastructures to beat important challenges, together with excessive capital expenditure, frequent costly {hardware} refresh cycles, outdated safety protocols, and most significantly, managing the info net of siloed techniques. By leveraging related EHR techniques within the cloud, suppliers can even unlock the complete potential of their information and additional ship data-driven AI improvements.
Azure for mission-critical workloads
Migrating EHR techniques to Microsoft Azure offers healthcare organizations with a strong platform for mission-critical workloads, making certain optimized efficiency, quick information entry, built-in catastrophe restoration, and enhanced safety features, reminiscent of AI-powered risk detection and automatic compliance monitoring. On prime of that, Azure maximizes cloud investments, providing new prospects to harness information to springboard AI improvements.
Knowledge is on the coronary heart of healthcare. Hospitals produce greater than 50 petabytes of knowledge throughout greater than 10 siloed techniques yearly. Because the healthcare trade faces the twin challenges of managing huge quantities of unstructured information and a scarcity of workforce, as much as 97% of healthcare information goes unused, highlighting a major missed alternative for operational excellence and higher affected person insights.1 One of many largest advantages for healthcare clients on Azure is the power to unify their multi-modal healthcare information for analytics and AI with healthcare information options in Microsoft Cloth that lets them ingest, retailer, and analyze information from varied sources and modalities. Whereas Cloth unifies your information, Microsoft Purview delivers the info governance service that helps you classify the info throughout your information property, together with identification for delicate information. Integrating Microsoft Purview with healthcare information options in Cloth not solely strengthens safety but in addition provide help to guarantee compliance, enabling healthcare organizations to control their information with confidence. We’re conscious about the trade expectations through which our know-how is utilized, and this is among the many the reason why our healthcare clients belief Azure for mission-critical workloads.
As we proceed to ship information improvements, we see our clients use their related information on a large spectrum of AI capabilities. With Azure AI, healthcare organizations can speed up innovation by means of predictive analytics, automate medical duties, and enhance affected person interactions with the assistance of ambient AI options like DAX Copilot (straight embedded in EHR techniques), in addition to make the most of Microsoft healthcare AI fashions in Azure AI Foundry and GitHub, a set of cutting-edge multi-modal generative AI fashions that profit imaging and radiology workflows.
Enhanced assist for mission-critical
Mission-critical workloads demand complete assist. In 2024, Microsoft Unified enhanced its assist for mission-critical workloads in healthcare by means of its Mission Essential Choices. This initiative offers proactive assist to enhance the well being, resiliency, and efficiency of healthcare techniques by way of common assessments, steerage, and optimization suggestions, making certain enterprise continuity and addressing distinctive healthcare challenges.
Collaborating for know-how excellence: A strategic partnership that stands out
Our dedication to mission-critical is mirrored in our collaborations with main EHR suppliers reminiscent of Epic®. This long-standing relationship of greater than 20 years has yielded an optimized answer for Epic® on Azure, providing a strong, purpose-built platform backed by joint-reference structure. Just lately, Microsoft introduced expanded scalability on Azure for healthcare organizations, particularly for working Epic®’s Chronicles* Operational Database (ODB), rising its capability to 65 million international references per second (GRefs/s), a 171% enhancement from 2023 on the new Mbv3 VM collection.
The collaboration with Epic® extends properly past the cloud infrastructure—to a number of merchandise and capabilities a part of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Epic® and Microsoft have expanded their collaboration to combine superior AI applied sciences reminiscent of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and the DAX Copilot into Epic®’s EHR system. The combination helps present AI-powered medical insights, streamline administrative processes, and enhance clinician productiveness by means of options like be aware summarization and automatic coding strategies.
Delivering worth past infrastructure: The Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare promise
Microsoft’s well-rounded partnership with Epic® is among the many the reason why Azure is the cloud of alternative for a lot of of our healthcare clients.
The choice to maneuver mission-critical workloads to the cloud is commonly not nearly infrastructure. Prospects like Mercy selected Azure to not solely modernize their infrastructure but in addition extract worth from sizeable information archives. Mercy’s digital transformation on Azure enabled it to attach beforehand siloed information and use a number of Microsoft providers reminiscent of Azure Knowledge Lake to end in optimistic enterprise outcomes. For instance, by empowering care groups with good dashboards and insights into components that decide affected person discharge, Mercy has been in a position to scale back affected person keep durations considerably. Mercy employs Azure AI Doc Intelligence to scan and acknowledge data on affected person’s insurance coverage playing cards which then will get up to date on their EHR information mechanically.
We acknowledge our buyer’s want to have an entire digital transformation within the cloud that transcends each layer of the stack, and Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare lets us ship to that promise. It encapsulates a broad spectrum of progressive information and AI improvements from Microsoft, purpose-built for the healthcare trade, enabling our clients to realize their cloud-first objectives sooner and simpler. Just lately, Microsoft introduced a number of improvements as a part of the portfolio, together with new healthcare AI fashions in Azure AI Foundry, capabilities for healthcare information options in Microsoft Cloth, the healthcare agent service in Copilot Studio, and an AI-powered nursing workflow answer.
As clients notice the worth of consolidating their IT investments round a single vendor, Azure is more and more being adopted for mission-critical workloads. By seamlessly connecting and delivering worth throughout all layers of the stack, Azure for mission-critical extends a buyer’s return on cloud investments. Prospects like St. Luke’s College Well being System are reaping the advantages of their Epic® on Azure migration by making the most of a number of synergies within the Microsoft portfolio, just like the interoperability of Microsoft Groups with Epic®. Safety is of paramount significance when coping with affected person information, and clients like Jefferson Well being migrate their Epic® environments to Azure with excessive confidence with Microsoft Defender for end-point detection and response.
Subsequent steps
As we proceed to remodel mission-critical workloads within the cloud, we’re making it simpler for our companions and clients to create related experiences at each level of care, empower their healthcare workforce, and unlock the worth from their information, all with uncompromised privateness and safety. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is supporting healthcare organizations on each step of their journey towards shaping a more healthy future.
*Epic® and Chronicles are logos of Epic Methods Company.
1 World Financial Discussion board, 4 methods information is bettering healthcare, December 2019.
