Global public and private expenditure on healthcare exceeded USD10 trillion in 2021, making the industry one of the most important globally. Yet, the inflationary environment is threatening this development. While some of the major health trends, like shifting to healthier behaviours or adopting telehealth, are clearly benefiting from the search for newfound efficiency and cost-saving, growth in the personalisation and transformation of medical production might stall due to the high costs of initial investments and businesses being on the lookout for cost-saving options.
Inflation facilitates a shift to healthier behaviour
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, sustained high prevalence of lifestyle diseases was facilitating a shift to reduced tobacco use, moderate alcohol intake, a balanced diet and sufficient exercising. This shift has intensified over 2019-2022 due to the growing health awareness brought by the pandemic. According to the Euromonitor International Voice of the Consumer: Health and Nutrition and Nicotine Surveys, in 2022, 75% of global respondents were already trying to quit or reduce smoking, 48% were quitting drinking alcohol and 64% wished to improve their diets.
Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer, and Google Cloud today announced a collaboration to improve patient care, clinician experiences, and to help the health and hospital network operate more efficiently.
The new alliance will be paramount in Northwell’s effort to transform digital and connected experiences with the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) to increase the efficiency of care and allow the health system more opportunities to better deliver equitable care in the communities it serves. Leveraging Google’s advanced technology will give Northwell the ability to enhance experiences in digital scheduling, automate payer interactions and provide intelligent summarizations of medical information. In addition, Northwell will leverage Google Cloud’s AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities for predictive insights to help with capacity planning and scheduling, and to identify risk indicators to help with early interventions.
“Digital transformation is critical to our long-term goals of further advancing clinical excellence in our health system”, “This partnership will help us deliver personalized experiences by safely and privately harnessing customers’ data to enhance care, well-being, and equity in care for our patients.”
Michael Dowling, president and CEO, Northwell Health
As part of this partnership, Northwell Health will leverage Google Cloud as its preferred cloud platform for infrastructure modernization, and to build an interoperable data platform with AI and ML capabilities. This includes contextual recommendations that equip nurses and clinicians with decision making support that goes beyond summarizing the information from different records, building relationships between the information to help support the right actions at the right time.
“People want the same kind of seamless experiences and access to their healthcare that they have in other areas of their life, and healthcare providers need to meet these demands while also running the organization more efficiently”, “Northwell Health is taking the lead on innovation and interoperability to transform health and wellness for millions of New Yorkers.”
Joe Miles, managing director, Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Solutions for Google Cloud
Privacy and security will be of the utmost importance in all aspects of this digital transformation. Through the implementation of Google Cloud’s reliable infrastructure along with Northwell Health’s layers of security, privacy controls and processes, the access and use of patient data will be appropriately protected.
