Ramsay Health Care joins forces with Google Cloud

Ramsay Health Care (Ramsay), Australia's largest private hospital operator, has selected Google Cloud as its data and innovation partner to support its 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 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. 

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

"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 critical in delivering the healthcare provider's 2030 digital strategy. Ramsay has a network of more than 70 hospitals, clinics, and surgical centres nationwide. Previously, data sat in separate on-premise locations, making analysis and insights extraction a time-intensive and cumbersome process. 

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 a 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.

Ramsay will also deploy Google Cloud's Apigee API Management and Anthos Service Mesh solutions to support data interoperability better. 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.

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

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

"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 encryption keys to protect sensitive, confidential health information further. No one accesses our patient data except us. For health care providers, that is non-negotiable," says Dr Gandhi.

Ramsay is now working with Google Cloud to build new AI-led healthcare solutions which 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, faster and accurate coding and improved demand forecasting. 

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

"Creating a centralised data hub means that Ramsay can improve connectivity, operationalise data, and unlock new insights to help its patients and clinicians truly. This is also a great example of how AI in healthcare can help drive efficiencies and have a broad societal impact."

Simon Poulton, CEO of Kasna, says: "We are privileged to collaborate with Ramsay Health Care and Google Cloud in a remarkable digital transformation journey."

"With our extensive experience in deploying Google Cloud in highly regulated environments, we are uniquely positioned to accelerate Ramsay's ambitious goals of leveraging their vast amount of data."

"Together, we can positively impact the lives of Australians through evidence-based insights," says Poulton.