Kaiser Permanente taps Microsoft, Accenture for multiyear cloud partnership

Kaiser Permanente is collaborating with Accenture and Microsoft to beef up its cloud computing capabilities and improve digital experiences for clinicians and patients.

The multiyear agreement will leverage Microsoft Azure to enable stronger cloud computational power and data insights readily available to care teams, so Kaiser’s members—and patients—will benefit from more timely and personalized healthcare, the health system said.

Kaiser tapped Microsoft and Accenture to build up and scale its cloud environment, which supports its more than 85,000 clinicians and 12.4 million members. 
 

“This collaboration will help Kaiser Permanente better serve our members by providing our care teams with increased access to cloud-based services, which will enable them to deliver personalized digital experiences and make more data-informed decisions,” said Diane Comer, senior vice president and interim chief information officer at Kaiser Permanente, in a statement.

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Digital health options are expanding, and the need to quickly adapt to different patient expectations and new health challenges will guide the collaboration. With stronger cloud computational power and data insights readily available to care teams, Kaiser Permanente members will receive even more timely and personalized care, with data privacy and security continuing to be a top priority, health system officials said.

“Kaiser Permanente’s bold move to the cloud at speed and scale builds on its decades-long history of innovation,” said Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, in a statement. “By collaborating with Accenture and Microsoft to re-platform digital assets and further leverage insights and intelligence, Kaiser Permanente is empowering their clinicians and patients to customize care with more and better data.”
 
Delivering personalized, accessible care through technology is crucial to meeting the needs of millions of Kaiser Permanente members across the nation, said Judson Althoff, executive vice president for Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business.

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“By collaborating with Kaiser Permanente and Accenture, we’re helping move the healthcare industry toward a cloud-driven future that will enable better care and advance innovation," Althoff said.

Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services are all pushing deeper into healthcare in a battle to provide cloud computing and data storage technology to hospitals and payers.

Partnerships between health systems and tech companies are becoming fairly common as the healthcare industry pushes forward to use data analytics and machine learning to make better use of healthcare data.