Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, September/October 2014 | Page 26

Tr u th s & Fu n da me nta ls The need for not-for-profit organizations It is heart-warming to see providers and payers increasingly focused on health data and analytics to figure out better ways to deliver quality care without increasing cost. By Rajib Ghosh 26 | A couple of interesting developments happened during the past few months. Google launched its next healthcare initiative, Baseline Study, to do genetic analysis and determine what a healthy human body should be [1]. It will start with the genetic and molecular information from 175 volunteers, but it later will expand into thousands more. Google also announced its Google Fit platform and launched SDK. In the electronic medical record (EMR) space, Cerner, a known behemoth, bought the health IT business from Siemens after the latter decided to exit this vertical. Cerner’s acquisition is an interesting development. It shows that the EMR market is opening up for consolidation. A few large corporations, each with large market share, will eventually dominate the EMR marketplace catering to mostly large buyers. Too many options usually paralyze buying decisions. Apple decided to work closely with IBM to penetrate the enterprise software business. Healthcare has not been mentioned yet as part of the newly formed partnership, but this is certainly a possibility. In my last article, I mentioned how IBM’s strategy of “Watson in the cloud” for healthcare can receive a huge boost owing to the overwhelming preference of clinicians for Apple devices. a n a ly t i c s - m a g a z i n e . o r g w w w. i n f o r m s . o r g