Ramsay Health Care partners with Google Cloud

Ramsay Health Care (Ramsay) has selected Google Cloud as its data and innovation partner to support the company’s 2030 digital transformation strategy. Ramsay will collaborate with Google Cloud to give nurses, hospitals and clinicians better access to patient data, and use Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools as part of its commitment to offering gold standard clinical care.

Soon, clinicians could be able to utilise AI-powered risk assessment tools to help proactively identify patients at risk of illness. By analysing vast amounts of patient data — vital signs, labs, notes and more — the hospital’s AI algorithms will help spot patterns and risk factors to help doctors more effectively diagnose conditions.

“Data and AI can have a profound impact on reimagining health care and solving some of our most pressing challenges,” said Dr Rachna Gandhi, Group Chief Digital and Data Officer at Ramsay Health Care.

“With Google Cloud, we’re taking an insights-driven approach to transforming how we deliver clinical care — everything from optimising patient care and experiences to identifying trends and supporting better decisions about treatments.”

Creating a centralised data hub is a critical component in delivering on the healthcare provider’s 2030 digital strategy. Ramsay has a network of more than 70 hospitals, clinics and surgical centres across the country. Previously, data sat in separate on-premise locations, making analysis and insights extraction a time-intensive and cumbersome process.

Building a robust data and insights hub

In partnership with Kasna, part of Mantel Group, the Ramsay Data Hub will be built using Google Cloud’s serverless and cost-effective enterprise data warehouse, BigQuery, which provides an easy path to becoming an intelligence-driven organisation. It will allow Ramsay to securely and cost-effectively ingest, store and analyse both real-time data as well as large volumes of diverse, raw data to deliver insights-driven business transformation.

To better support data interoperability, Ramsay will also deploy Google Cloud’s Apigee API Management and Anthos Service Mesh solutions. These tools will help the company support healthcare data protocols that define how information can be securely managed and accessed within and between facilities, opening up more opportunities to improve patient care.

“By working with Google Cloud to build our data foundation, we are gaining a deeper understanding of what is happening across the company,” Gandhi said.

Data security and privacy

Google Cloud’s responsible approach to data governance and privacy ensures only Ramsay controls access and use of patient’s data.

“Most important to us is data security. With Google Cloud, data is encrypted end to end, allowing us to create innovative solutions that strictly comply with regulations and protect privacy. All data is encrypted by default at rest and in-flight, and we are using our own encryption keys to further protect the sensitive confidential health information. No-one accesses our patient data except us. For healthcare providers, that is non-negotiable,” Gandhi said.

Reimagining the future of health care with data and AI

Ramsay is now working with Google Cloud to build new AI-led healthcare solutions that will play a crucial role in streamlining clinical workflows and provide clinicians with easy access to critical information to enhance patient care, including:

• Analysing clinical notes: With new AI-powered tools, Ramsay clinicians will be able to extract insights to enhance clinical decision-making by identifying patterns and trends that may not be obvious.
• Faster, accurate coding: Ramsay is planning to use AI algorithms to optimise clinical coding, which will reduce the burden on medical coders and improve coding accuracy.
• Improved demand forecasting: Ramsay will utilise AI to ensure medications do not go to waste, and enable more systematic allocation of procedures to optimise theatre and staff utilisation, leading to cost savings, while ensuring there is no compromise to patient care.
   

“Ramsay is revolutionising the future of health care with its approach to data and AI-led insights,” said Alister Dias, Vice President, Google Cloud, Australia and New Zealand.

“The creation of a centralised data hub means that Ramsay can improve connectivity, operationalise data and unlock new insights to truly help its patients and clinicians. This is also a great example of how AI in health care can not only help drive efficiencies, but also have broad societal impact,” Dias said.

Image credit: iStock.com/metamorworks