AWS-enabled smart health solutions can help lower the cost of providing quality healthcare services to citizens, said Jean Pierre Horne, Head of Healthcare AWS in South Africa, in his talk Transforming public healthcare in the cloud on day four of Africa Health 2021. This is achieved by leveraging data that provides insights to providers and patients, and predicting healthcare events before they occur
Some of the challenges that Africa faces has to do with the lack of capacity for adopting technology, the tech executive explained.
AWS is “working within the guidelines, in accordance with international bodies like the WHO…and aligning with the African Union,” he said.
“We strive to enable the access and delivery of patient centered healthcare, driving improving outcomes at a low cost by accelerating the digitisation and utilisation of healthcare and life sciences data,” he added.
Horne said that AWS has accelerated innovation with the broadest and deepest portfolio of cloud-based services, including purpose built health specific solutions. He stressed that the cloud can reduce costs by building cost saving techniques.
“Improving business agility by deploying new features faster and reducing errors is something very important for our healthcare services customers,” he explained.
According to Horne, AWS has seen governments worldwide continue to improve healthcare for citizens as they use the cloud to advance clinical care. Medical centres use it for data analytics and data sharing capability.
“National health systems around the world who handle sensitive workloads use AWS services,” he indicated.
Horne introduced AWS for Health as a comprehensive, purpose built health platform that provides 16 critical solutions in healthcare, biopharma and genomics, that aims to help health organisations improve their innovation capabilities.
Digital front door
“To ensure we can personalise our customers' digital journey we do so through a process called digital front door,” the AWS executive continued.
Digital front door principles bring the full cycle consumer experience to healthcare. “Patients' experiences are customers [experience],” he explained.
“A patient should have a seamless experience throughout discovery registration, in video, discharge and follow up,” Horne added. Whether a telemedicine application or virtual consultation, it can be managed across physical and digital platforms. “This is why we provide omnichannel engagement customised for each patient.”
AWS for Health furthermore helps organisations to transform data seamlessly, identify trends and make predictions, and support interoperability, he concluded.