Google Cloud has penned a multiyear strategic partnership with the healthcare company LifePoint Health in order to implement Google Cloud’s healthcare data engine in its hospitals.
LifePoint will utilize Google’s HDE to improve community-based healthcare delivery in the 29 states where the company operates. Clinicians will gain near real-time, globalized views of patients’ records as opposed to isolated data sets, according to a press release. With LifePoint’s far reach into rural communities, the partnership is expected to improve quality of care in historically marginalized populations, executives said.
“LifePoint Health is fundamentally changing how healthcare is delivered at the community level,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, in a press release. “Bringing data together from hundreds of sources and applying AI and machine learning to it will unlock the power of data to make real-time decisions—whether it is around resource utilization, identifying high-risk patients, reducing physician burnout or other critical needs.”
Previously, LifePoint utilized myriad disparate electronic medical record systems. Google Cloud says its healthcare data engine offers a holistic view of patients provided by combining medical records, clinical trials and research data, along with other informational sources, in order to avoid gaps in knowledge. Google Cloud’s HDE contains the Google Cloud Healthcare API which is customized to offer longitudinal insights in FHIR. Google believes the design expands data interoperability for both in-person care and virtual settings.
LifePoint will implement the system at its 60 acute care facilities, 30-plus rehabilitation and behavioral health hospitals and 170 additional centers of care. The partnership adds to LifePoint Forward, an initiative to develop innovative technological solutions with organizations like HealthCatalyst, Specialist TeleMed and 25m Health.
“The ability to deliver next-generation care comes from effectively combining clinical expertise with the latest technological advancements–not solely one or the other,” said David Dill, chairman and CEO of LifePoint Health, in a press release. “We are excited to combine the high-quality clinical care and scale of LifePoint’s diversified healthcare network with the innovation, agility and security of Google Cloud HDE, so we can enhance how we deliver the right care to our patients at the right time and through the right channels. This partnership is a meaningful milestone in our pursuit of advancing community-based care, and we look forward to working with Google to fulfill our mission of Making Communities Healthier.”
More companies have been turning to Google Cloud-powered AI to meet their healthcare needs in recent years. Just this week Google hosted the annual Health Equity summit to examine critical health equity issues with healthcare and tech leaders, government officials and academics.
LifePoint recently expanded its reach by agreeing to acquire a majority stake in Springstone, a behavioral health provider. Once the acquisition is complete, LifePoint will add 21 behavioral health hospitals and over 30 additional sites of care to its portfolio.
The company was recently embroiled in controversy after North Carolina’s Justice Department asked LifePoint to respond to allegations about Wilson Medical Center being understaffed and denying patients care who can’t pay for treatment. Federal regulators are conducting an ongoing investigation of the claims against the LifePoint-owned hospital.