PokitDok, Merck, Orion Make AWS Announcements at HIMSS17

February 22, 2017 - HIMSS17 was not short on Amazon Web Services (AWS) announcements as vendors touched on plans to utilize the service to bring more flexibility and continence to their health IT infrastructure solutions. As HITInfrastructure.com will review here, AWS continues to carve a path for healthcare cloud deployments.

AWS Marketplace Adds Healthcare and Life Sciences Category

AWS Marketplace announced that it now contains a healthcare and life sciences vertical category to make it easier for healthcare organizations to discover, evaluate, and deploy third party software solutions in the AWS cloud.

Organizations looking to deploy third party software in their health IT infrastructure can now be sure that the solution will be compliant with the required healthcare standards. The category is made up of solutions that have been fully adapted to or built specifically for the healthcare and life sciences industries.

AWS made this adjustment to its marketplace because of the unique requirements and environments of healthcare organizations. The amount of data collected by healthcare organizations makes them unique, and legacy systems simply can’t handle all the data coming in.

The AWS Marketplace makes several health IT approved big data analytics solutions readily available for deployment on the AWS cloud.

PokitDok Launches on AWS Marketplace

PokitDok also revealed the availability of its app development solution on AWS Marketplace’s newly launched Healthcare and Life Sciences category.

PokitDok on AWS helps healthcare organizations solve interoperability challenges and build applications for better care delivery, coordination, and patient engagement.

“Customers from industry vertical markets, such as Healthcare, want access to software like PokitDok that is available for immediate purchase and deployment from AWS Marketplace,” AWS Marketplace and Catalog Services General Manager of Global Business Development Barry Russell stated. “The availability of innovative solutions like PokitDok demonstrates our focus on delivering the tools healthcare organizations need to transform their business on AWS.”

With AWS, PokitDok will offer bundled plans to simplify patient check-in, handle health insurance information, and assist with other transactions that require patient data.

Merck Uses AWS to Improve Chronic Disease Management

Merck announced its collaboration with AWS to develop voice-enabled solutions that improve chronic disease management. The company is using Amazon Lex, the same learning technology that powers Amazon Alexa.

Merck is beginning to use the technology to focus on diabetes and hopes to leverage the AWS Cloud using its experience in web services, connected devices, and voice interfaces. These and other critical business functions can be integrated into a variety of care models that include telehealth, medical house calls, and precision medicine.

“Merck has a deep heritage of tackling chronic diseases through our medicines, and we have been expanding into other ways to help, beyond the pill.” Merck Vice President of Customer Strategy and Innovation, Global Human Health Kimberly Park said in a statement. “We are excited to leverage the AWS Cloud to find innovative ways to leverage digital solutions, such as voice-activated technology, to help support better outcomes that could make a difference in the lives of those suffering from chronic conditions like diabetes.”

Merck added that it hopes to utilize AWS to better connect clinicians with patients.

Orion Health Migrates To AWS

Orion Health revealed the migration of its Amadeus precision medicine platform to AWS Cloud. The platform currently manages over 110 million patient records.

Orion Health hopes to use AWS to provide advanced security, data privacy, higher availability, and machine learning to Amadeus users. The move is also in preparation for the management capabilities and storage space Orion Health will need for the increased amount of data collected by healthcare organizations.

“Today Amadeus is utilized by many health systems across the world to acquire, unify and store traditional medical record data,” Orion Health CEO Ian McCrae said in a statement. “The move to AWS now allows Amadeus to store vast volumes of new data including genomic, device, social, behavioral, environmental and other new data types.”

McCrae added that healthcare is about to experience a “tsunami of new information” that will revolutionize medical practices. He predicted that medical records could potentially contain terabytes of data per patient. This prospect is a major reason why Orion Health is making the move to AWS.