Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Google Cloud and Epic have signed a deal that will enable hospitals using the electronic health record company's products to take those records to the cloud, they announced Monday.
Why it matters: The partnership gives health systems another option for their cloud environment. Google Cloud officials say the platform will offer new tools to build more efficiencies and optimize care, as well as secure their data.
New Jersey-based Hackensack Meridian Health will be the first health system to migrate its Epic records to Google Cloud.
- “We expect running Epic on Google Cloud will be simpler for our IT and developers, and will allow them to focus more on uncovering creative ways to improve patient care,” Kash Patel, chief digital information officer for Hackensack, said in a statement.
The big picture: It was one of a series of partnerships Google Cloud announced at the HLTH 2022 Conference.
- It also announced a deal with Hackensack and Tennessee-based Lifepoint Health to launch what they're calling Healthcare Data Engine accelerators in 2023.
- In short, these offer template dashboards for health systems to break down siloes within their own data to address common use cases.
- Health systems have a common interest in better mining their data to proactively address social determinants of health. The accelerators could help create a unified dashboard identifying patients that need support and prompting providers to offer more resources.