To help it develop advanced AI and machine learning applications, Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania has employed Amazon Web Services as its new strategic cloud provider.

The healthcare system will transition more than 400 systems and applications to AWS, making it one of the largest EHR migrations for the cloud provider. Geisinger executives expect AWS' services to help them create new solutions that will advance access to and quality of care for the more than three million patients they serve. Among these services are computing, storage, database and analytical capabilities, machine learning, security protection and networking and consent delivery.

They also see it as an opportunity to save millions that they will invest in simplifying healthcare delivery. “We know that rapidly evolving technology, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, can help save lives. Not to mention that this will make our staff more agile and responsive, so they can spend more time at the bedside, where our patients need them most,” said Geisinger’s chief information officer John Kravitz in a statement.

Geisinger is made up of 10 hospital campuses that together serve more than one million patients and provide billions in economic support to the state of Pennsylvania annually. It has already begun training the majority of its 24,000 employees on how to use AWS cloud services and will continue to do so for five years.

Kravitz expects AWS will enhance workflow and streamline and simplify daily workloads, while increasing productivity. “Being more nimble with technology development and deployment lets our teams focus on doing what they do best — providing compassionate, world-class, easily accessible healthcare to the communities we have the pleasure of serving."

Geisinger announced the partnership in May 2022 and in the same week that AWS deployed its services at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts. There, the Boston-based healthcare system has moved more than 40 disparate applications and its Epic electronic health record to an AWS-hosted environment. In doing so, it has transferred more than three million health accounts into the Epic EHR system in "record time" and says it is the first health system to accomplish a migration of that size, according to Healthcare IT News.

It plans to move as many as 300 applications and expects to save between $2 million and $5 million each year with AWS. "We are providing a personalized, connected care experience for our patients, as well as a data-driven, modern clinical environment," said Dr. Shafiq Rab, chief digital officer and chief information officer at Tufts Medicine.

Back to HCB News

Health IT Homepage