It’s simply amazing to witness how some of our systems integrators employ Google Cloud solutions to drive innovation in ways we at Google may never have considered—especially in healthcare.  According to analyst firm MarketsandMarkets, the market for the Cloud in healthcare is projected to grow 43% between 2020 and 2025 to nearly $65 billion, fueled by the need for better technology infrastructures and faster digital transformation.  

Healthcare and life sciences communities are looking to Google Cloud and its Service engagement model partners to improve collaboration and activate the power of medical data.  These transformations deliver robust data analytics and bring a much deeper perspective into health epidemics like COVID-19 to help save lives.

In the healthcare and life sciences industry, our Google Cloud partners and customers provide constant energy and inspiration–and are the magic in some key healthcare innovations globally.  

Let me show you how they are solving real-world business challenges.

Improving collaboration in Healthcare

Cloudbakers and Comanche County Memorial Hospital transitioned 2,000 employees to Google Workspace to improve collaboration, reduce costs, and increase security. By implementing a system that requires less maintenance while enabling mobile access to data and true collaboration, Comanche County Memorial Hospital saves $175,000 annually on licenses and helps medical professionals spend more time with patients.

“We chose Google Workspace because it cost a quarter of what we were paying previously, offers the kind of modern features that healthcare facilities need, and gave us data security and peace of mind.” —James Wellman, CIO, Comanche County Memorial Hospital

Accessing previously locked down medical data

Google Cloud and Quantiphi supported advances in cloud-based machine learning services to reduce infrastructure costs, unlock new paths of treatment, and dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to evaluate scanned imagery following a stroke.  John Hopkins University BIOS Division has been working on medical imaging to accelerate insights from scans on approximately 500 patients from 2,500 hours to 90 minutes, and lead to more accurate decision-making for brain injury patients that will ultimately improve medical outcomes.  

“We’ve aligned closely with the goal of showing that a cloud-based, AI-driven approach is robust and that it can be performed while protecting personal PHI. In terms of costs, the cloud has definitely reduced some of the traditional financial demands of our research.” —Daniel F. Hanley, Jr., M.D., Director, Johns Hopkins University BIOS Division

Improving data access with the flexibility of Google Cloud

With the help of MediaAgility, TRIARQ migrated to Google Cloud to modernize their platform, build new applications, and expand their global footprint.  With BigQuery, TRIARQ can now consolidate all transactional data, past and present, into a single location to report on specific insights and predict future data from e-prescriptions to complex revenue-cycle data and value-base analysis.

“The future of this industry will need to be a global one, and we can no longer be stuck in legacy systems if we want to survive. Having a team that is passionate about supporting us in this journey is definitely a plus point.”—Yaw Kwakye, Co-founder and Chief Architect, TRIARQ

Increasing visibility to COVID-19 outbreaks for actionable insights

As part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, HCA Healthcare chose to work with Google Cloud and SADA to create a national portal that increases visibility into outbreaks in 3,100 counties across the country in just 8 weeks.  Now, the portal generates 30,000 new analytical views each day that can help inform private and public sector decision making for reopenings, closures, hot spots, and many other population health management activities. 

“This project required deep knowledge of AI, and consumer-facing platforms, as well as healthcare. Google brought together the ideal combination of product, people, and partners. Google Cloud’s healthcare-specific products along with SADA’s expertise in the healthcare IT space made this partnership the perfect choice to move quickly and intelligently.”—Dr. Edmund Jackson, Chief Data Officer, HCA Healthcare

We’re committed to building the technology, resources, and services through Partner Advantage to help our partners address this opportunity.  Looking for a solution focused partner in your region who has achieved Expertise and/or Specialization in your industry?  Search our Global Partner Directory.  Not yet a Google Cloud partner? Visit Partner Advantage and learn how to become one today!

Born in Iran as a refugee during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I understand the challenges many people face there to get access to formal education. I was one of eight children in a progressive, yet financially limited, family. We left everything behind in Herat to move to a new country. To make ends meet, my mother sold handmade clothing. She invested what little she earned in my education, which made it possible for me to finish high school. 

While opportunities for education in Afghanistan have increased over the past few decades, there are still many barriers that stand in the way of education for Afghan women—familial expectations, socioeconomic circumstances, cultural stigmas, societal norms and even safety issues. These circumstances make it challenging for women to find work and explain why only 19 percent participate in the workforce, 84 percent lack formal education and are often illiterate, and just 2 percent have access to higher education.

2001 marked the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and many Afghan families, including my own, found hope in their motherland again. The next year, I returned to Herat. Seeing my peers —women just like me with so much potential—I felt compelled to do something. But I knew that in order to help others, I first needed to further my own education. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and later a Master’s degree from the Technical University of Berlin in Germany. 

When I returned to Afghanistan after school, I hoped to share my newly-minted tech skills with Herat women by teaching at the local university. At the time, few women were participating in the public workforce and there were still many extremist, conservative views in the country. I was vocal about inequalities and faced backlash from the community; because of these threats, I came to the United States as an asylum seeker in 2012. 

After arriving in the United States, I was inspired to start Code to Inspire, the first coding school for girls in Afghanistan between the ages of 15 and 25 that provides free after school education in gaming, web development, graphic design, mobile applications and full stack development. Our goal is to empower women with the skills they need to program so that they can drive change in their communities and gain equal access to opportunities and financial independence.

Determined to make this coding school happen, I found myself faced with an interesting obstacle: how could I build an education center in Afghanistan without ever leaving the US? 

To make this possible, I turned to technology—just as I had hoped my future students would. I took a side job teaching Farsi to pay my bills, and built the blueprint for Code to Inspire from a laptop in Brooklyn. I managed everything from my computer working from cafes in New York: fundraising, shipping equipment, recruiting mentors, registering applicants, and developing the curriculum.

To move things forward day-to-day, I use G Suite to communicate and collaborate with my team. I use Hangouts Meet to connect with students remotely during weekly calls and monthly check-ins. We use Google Docs, Sheets and Slides to create essential documents and keep track of our operations. We even used Slides for our first pitch deck, which I shared with my board to get their feedback. This power and connectivity enabled a refugee to make her dream come true, and built up the digital literacy of the women I was working with back home!

Since opening its doors, 150 girls have studied with us, and the students have created so many interesting projects. One inspiring example is the popular mobile game, Afghan Hero Girl, which has taken off in Afghanistan and abroad, and was even recognized by the local government. The girls developed the game to show a female protagonist dressed in traditional Afghan garb, who undergoes obstacles that are relatable to them.  

Over 50 women have graduated from Code to Inspire, and 20 have secured remote full-time employment and freelance projects. Many of these women are even out-earning their male relatives who have become huge supporters of the program.

By 2030, we hope to open two additional schools in Kabul and Mazar that can serve up to 500 girls and provide employment opportunities within six months of graduation. From the ruins of a shattered nation and shattered lives of refugees can come treasure, if we know where to find it. For me, the girls in Afghanistan are the treasure and investing in their education is the future of a peaceful Afghanistan.