Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare Launched; Takes the Limelight in Fight against COVID-19

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reinforced the spirit of unity and solidarity with the frontline healthcare workers and his engineers. Today, the tech behemoth announced the official launch of the industry-first Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. The Healthcare Cloud offering is now 100% available for public preview and will remain free-to-trial for the next six months, practically taking it through the full of 2020.

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Reassuring the entire healthcare service industry with this unique Cloud offering, Microsoft has taken a bold step to integrate the top-line engineering capabilities in DevOps, IT agility and customer experience built on its core foundations of serving the mankind at times of crisis.

What Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare Does?

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is a very unique product, comprising of many desirable features and applications designed specifically to meet the current demands and challenges in healthcare services.

The top-line features include–

• Patient Engagement and collaboration, via Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing, Azure IoT and Dynamics 365 Customer Service;
• Personalized, real-time patient experience ;
• Remote health monitoring and assistance, delivered through Healthcare Bot Service;
• Connected Physician and Referral management to ensure social distancing at healthcare facilities;
• Online appointment booking portals, with self-service dashboards to book online meetings, bill payments, and so on;
• Intelligent patient outreach with preventive and care management programs for contact patients; and
• IoT-based healthcare partner community to engage proactively with all the healthcare organizations.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare will also support Microsoft Teams in taking new bookings and scheduling meetings to enable healthcare workers to conduct virtual appointments. Teams is now HITRUST certified and comply with HIPAA standards.

Microsoft has confirmed that Healthcare Cloud has already been adopted at various hospitals catering to COVID-19 cases in hotspot zones. These include the St. Luke’s University Health Network, Stony Brook Medicine, and Calderdale  & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust in the U.K and Swedish Health Services. These institutions have been using teams to conduct virtual patient visits and provide continuity of care while protecting providers and patients.

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Tech Community is United

SasS and Cloud leaders and business intelligence groups have shown immense solidarity during the crisis. Microsoft’s Tom Mcguinness, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Health, Microsoft and Dr. Gregory J. Moore, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Health wrote,

“Microsoft is proud to work closely with the leading providers of health systems, from organizations like Accenture, Adaptive Biotechnologies, Allscripts, DXC Technology, KPMG, and Nuance to co-develop new solutions with leaders in their respective sectors like Humana, Providence, Novartis, and Walgreens Boots Alliance.”

They continued, “What’s powerful about these tools is that they’re being used not just by providers in the delivery of healthcare but by ISVs, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, and government systems. We’ve seen companies like KenSci—a healthcare AI & data management platform—launch their Mobile Command Center with Real-Time Bed Management, Ventilator Utilization, and Capacity Planning for COVID-19.  In just 48 hours they can create a hospital solution—even those using legacy data systems—and help manage their data in the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare using the open standard of FHIR.”

Other key developments this week at Microsoft include:

• The launch of Microsoft Family Safety App
• Azure Synapse Link, for low-cost data movement
• Fluid Framework with upcoming availability of Fluid components and Fluid workspaces in Office.com and Outlook for the Web
• Project Reunion for connecting 1 billion Windows 10 devices
• The acquisition of low-code RPA platform, Softomotive
• Launch of the purpose-built super AI computer, created with OpenAI for an Azure-specific Cloud environment
• Unraveling the pitches made by the six finalist teams in this year’s Imagine Cup
• New updates to Azure Machine Learning, and launch of WhiteNoise toolkit, to fight against financial frauds, like EuroBonus.

(To share your insights on Cloud for Healthcare adoption and deployments, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com)