What do Google and Amazon really want from medical imaging?

Big Tech’s recent expansions into medical imaging have business watchers scrambling to decipher the unspoken stratagems beneath the conspicuous moves.

Particularly eyebrow-raising among these have been Google’s assignment of an evident new medical-imaging division, Medical Imaging Suite, and Amazon’s HealthLake-based coordination of partner companies that have considerable imaging expertise as well as established market presence.

At the Acceleration Economy Network, a brief item suggests the two giants are “battling for dominance” in medical imaging.

“While Google Cloud is focusing on pain points and reducing person hours, Amazon Web Services appears to be taking a more comprehensive approach,” Spain-based business analyst Kieron Allen writes. “It’s looking at the introduction of cloud-based medical image retrieval and analysis as a driver for cloud adoption.”

Allen sees the corporations’ expansions in medical imaging as a logical extension of their recognition that imaging is, in various ways, “advancing at a staggering rate.”

The field’s growth makes its mass relocation to the cloud inevitable if not yet imminent, he implies.

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When you separate the images from the healthcare professional’s diagnosis, you’re left with data. Google estimates that as much as 90% of healthcare data is medical imagery. And when it comes to making data accessible, organized, and coherent, cloud technologies provide the most superior and wide-reaching solutions.”

He adds that AWS is, for its part, “ultimately providing a scalable solution that should encourage healthcare providers to switch [medical imaging workflows] to the cloud.”

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Dave Pearson

Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.

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