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