Healthcare is Stepping into the Cloud
At first blush, the teaming of search-engine operator Google with FitBit, a leader in connected wearables, appears counter-intuitive. One company monetizes the content it delivers by keeping users glued to their screens; the other developed its business by raising people to their feet.
However, the partnership announced April 30 is the latest in a tech-driven march to more personalized care. FitBit will utilize Google’s Cloud for Healthcare application programming interface to marry the data generated by its wristbands and smartwatches with users’ medical records.
Around the world and across a healthcare industry ranging from insurers to pharma companies and research facilities, software developers and device makers are improving outcomes and cutting costs via the cloud.
Richer pools of data
Other notable tie-ups include Microsoft’s announcement in January that it is using artificial intelligence to help Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies improve disease diagnosis and treatment with immunotherapy. The same month, Amazon Web Services, the cloud subsidiary of the global retailing and logistics giant, announced it would provide the infrastructure for the joint employee healthcare network its parent is developing with JP Morgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway.
While digitization of paper records and film images has proceeded apace at hospitals and physician networks, the transition to cloud-based delivery that would enable both doctors and patients to access richer pools of relevant data is far from complete.
Introduced in March, Google’s Cloud for Healthcare API seeks to speed the process by giving developers a tool for standardizing disparate formats, including for clinical research and the development and testing of pharmaceuticals.
Lowering insurance costs
Individuals – themselves increasingly adept at managing their care in an era of rising costs, in part through websites accessed via internet search engines – stand to benefit, as do their employers. For example, FitBit’s income includes sales to companies which hand out GPS-linked wristbands to employees to monitor and motivate them to exercise as a means of reducing the cost of insurance premiums for both.
For Google, which is touting an API-first approach at its cloud subsidiary, the deal with FitBit is part of a broader effort to expand its share of a global marketplace for cloud services currently dominated by AWS. Supplementing the Cloud for Healthcare API is Espresso, a dynamic network management system that improves data flows and boosts the performance of platform applications.
Like the Cloud for Healthcare API that it supports, Espresso is one element in a decade-long strategy to implement software-defined networks on the servers Google operates, which together handle around 20% of global internet traffic. The protocols enable Google to improve the bandwidth for peer servers, including those operated by cloud service customers.
From devices to services
For Fitbit, the announcement of the tie-up coincides with a slide in sales of its devices, leading to a 17% year-on-year dip in first-quarter revenues. Executives say the Google partnership will enable FitBit Health Solutions to contribute a larger share of the group’s earnings as it transitions into services provision as part of a restructuring exercise undertaken last year in response to the sales decline.
Over the past 18 months, the division has struck partnerships with both the US Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, as well as with systems operator UnitedHealthcare and insurer BlueCross/BlueShield. In February, it acquired Twine Health, creator of a coaching application, to supplement a subscription-based offering to more than 23 million users.
FitBit’s transition to a services business is indicative of the disruptive effect of technology in healthcare. The same is true at Google, where the sector focus is less on the advertising revenues that drive its core search business and more on achieving growth by leveraging its data management expertise and computing infrastructure. Still, each appears an important step in helping providers exploit cloud technology to improve patient outcomes.
